Whistle Down the Wind

Whistle Down the Wind is a musical based on the 1959 novel by Mary Hayley Bell, adapted by Richard Taylor and Russell Labey, with music and lyrics by Richard Taylor. The story Act one December in the late 1950s in a Lancashire village. Out of the darkness and howling wind, a voice sings "Behold! For the day of the Lord will come." (PROLOGUE) Someone strikes a match - it is Eddie, a labourer on the Bostock farm, who is carrying a sack from which kittens' miaows can be heard. He drops the sack into a canal. Cathy, Nan and Charles, Mr. Bostock's children, watch him from a hiding place and, as Eddie exits, they rescue the kittens. Caring for them will be difficult; they can not show them to Dad, as he will give them back to Eddie (THE KITTENS). Charles tries unsuccessfully to give one to his friend, Jackie Greenwood, and to a Salvation Army woman. However, as nobody wants them, they eventually decide to keep all three in a barn on the farm. Outside the barn, Cathy, the eldest, makes the other two promise not to tell anyone of the kittens' existence. Nan asks who is going to look after them and Charles, echoing the bland sentiments of the Salvation Army woman, says that "Jesus will". Cathy tells him not to be daft as Jesus can not look after them because he is dead. Nan, shocked, says that He will come and get Cathy for saying such things. Cathy is not impressed and, after sending the others to the farmhouse, enters the barn. She goes to a large mound of hay and buries the kittens' basket in it. Suddenly a man bolts upright from out of the hay and stares wide-eyed at Cathy. He is delirious and his clothes and hands are all bloody from a wound in his side. Shocked, Cathy asks who he is and he, also shocked, utters "Jesus Christ!" and collapses. Cathy freezes in horror.