NOTEBOOK by Bill Heaney

A few light taps upon the window pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again.

He watched anxiously the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the dim lamplight of the the council offices on Church Street.

The time had come for him to make a huge decision. Yes, the weather forecaster was right: snow was general all over West Drumtartanshire.

It was falling on every part of the dark central plain over Broadmeadow, Lomondgate, Kilmalid and the Vale of Leven.

Over the Carman Hill, Renton and the Long Crags and, farther northwards, softly falling into the dark icy waters of Loch Lomond and the swift-flowing River Leven.

It was falling too on every part of the town cemetery where observers of local affairs were convinced his political career now lay buried.

The snow lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the angels and spears of the palings at the cemetery gates.

He had been portrayed as a mean-spirited, miserly man, the walking embodiment of Charles Dickens’s Scrooge.

He had refused to allocate the money for Christmas lights in Dumbarton and the Vale while Helensburgh next door had a magnificent display that delighted local parents, children and shoppers, who had never seen such a magnificent light show.

His disgruntled opponents and colleagues were shivering in the members’ room along the corridor because he refused to sign off cheques for the heating bills.

Austerity was the watchword in 21^st century Drumtartan and he had just turned down an invitation to visit to the annual Christmas party for the kids in Balloch Library.

He knew the reception there for him from worried parents, anxious children and old folk would be as cold as the ice on the windscreen of his car.

The children, he was told, had even been writing to Santa Claus to tell him all they wanted for Christmas was for their library to be kept open.

A few community activists called his office but were given short shrift on the telephone, directed to places where “the team” was unable to assist them.

No wonder he returned Christmas greetings from people in the street with “Bah, humbug!”

The morning post brought yet another letter begging him to drop the council’s austerity programme and listen to the voters who have written him letters and signed petitions.

More than 1500 people had signed the petition against the library closure.

He has a cold coming on and goes home to bed where he has a bad dream, finding himself in the dreaded place for those politicians whose jackets are on a shaky nail.

He reads his own name on an election result form which shows him bottom of the poll and desperately prays for his fate to be altered, promising to renounce austerity.

Happily for him, he wakes up suddenly and finds himself safely in a comfortable chair.

Overwhelmed with joy by this chance to redeem himself, he rushes out hoping to share his newfound Christmas spirit.

He sends a council van round to Balloch Library with a giant Christmas turkey and tins of Quality Street and a note which says that he will look again at the proposal to close the library.

He tells the teachers, who are yet again threatening industrial action over the constraints that have imposed on the system by the recently published PISA results, which have seen Scottish education slip to the lowest point in its history.

He treats the children of Haldane as if they were his own, provides comfort for the deserving poor, and makes provision to support his fellow human beings with kindness, generosity, and warmth.

He puts subsidies for food banks and special help for people unable to meet their energy costs at the top of his agenda, ahead of the £7.2 million earmarked for an unwanted library in an old building.

The pupils and their mothers and grandmothers who look upon the Balloch Library as a much-needed community hub can now enjoy their Christmas dinner.

Back in Dumbarton, the leader turns up the heat on his shivering colleagues and staff. He orders a new and visionary plan for education; bins the Curriculum of Excellence and the levelling up plans they have for the town centres in Dumbarton and the Vale, and sheds tears of regret for ever having accepted them.

Then he shares out the gifts given him by the children as Christmas presents and opens the bottles of wine set aside for the civic receptions for his pals and their pals.

The pin-striped suits and skirts who have brought the council into disrepute have left or are appearing to be about to leave with the gold-plated pensions they will receive for their ongoing failure to make West Dunbartonshire a more pleasant place to live.

This means the leader can now unimpeded guide his own sledge off the slippery slope of austerity and budget cuts and back on to the more welcoming snowy road less travelled these days by the Labour Party.

As the years go by, the leader retains his seat on the council, holds true to his promises, listens to the electorate, honours Christmas with all his heart and says bah, humbug to austerity.