Last updated 19:36, Thursday, 06 March 2008

They were banging drums, tambourines, triangles, the floor – and singing loudly enough to send any burly Welsh chorister running for Strepsils. She wriggled a bit on her cushion, turned her head and looked straight at me.

Though bright sunlight from a high window was twinkling from the lenses in her spectacles, her expression was unmistakable.

“Don’t mess with me,” it said. “I’m four.”

Every inch the born leader, Sian’s bobbled hair-slide and colour co-ordinated outfit in flattering shades of pink indicated her position as numero uno in the pecking order at Scotby Pre-school Playgroup.

Following her prompt, Sian’s pals, disciples, acolytes – some of them only three and one a babe in arms – turned and looked too. There was no mistaking the message in their expressions either.

“Best not mess with her. She’s four.”

Not for the first time, I’d stepped into the presence of superior intelligence. Mine was to be a brief visit but on Tuesday morning in Scotby Village Hall recurring suspicion was again confirmed. We are probably all born knowing everything and capable of anything. Then we grow older, forget what was once so obvious, lose courage and spend the rest of our lives scared of our own shadows, other people’s judgemental opinions... and children who are wiser and braver.

Singing, smiling wide open smiles, effusively greeting their visitor with unabashed interest and curiosity, these youngsters were the very picture of perfect childhood... the only perfection this imperfect world of ours has to offer.

What would they be in adulthood? Farmers, doctors, lawyers, captains of industry, nuclear physicists, property speculators, choristers, rock band drummers? Capable of anything now but as grown-ups would they know and enjoy the supreme poise and confidence of four-year-olds?

I hoped so – particularly the delightful bespectacled one, who I reckoned may well have had the makings of the kind of prime minister able to throw all we know of current options into the shade of instantly forgettable history.

“Have you got lipstick on?”

She slipped her hand into mine – probably more as an attention-grabbing command than a sign of affection – and craned her neck, the better to examine my mouth.

“Yes, I have,” I replied, offering a friendly smile and squeezing her fingers.

“Why?”

It’s a foolish woman who tries to fob off a bright kid with nonsense. But articulating honestly is no option for a grown-up who has lost courage and fears judgement. The truth? “Because I’m insecure and probably vain and lipstick makes me feel less vulnerable... which is stupid but true.” Bottling out, I chose flimflam – “Because I’m here meeting you!” – and regretted it instantly. She said nothing, wrinkled her nose slightly and led me by the hand, as she might a sadly unsteady invalid, towards some cushions on which I was supposed to kneel for a photograph with all the children.

Kicking off shoes and laughing away nervousness brought on by tight skirt and creaky knees, I warned the photographer: “If I get down there I might never get up again!”

“I’ll help,” Sian whispered and nestled into my side, as I’d kind of thought she might. She clutched the edge of the Cumberland News Charitable Trust cheque I was delivering between her finger and thumb and settled herself into a picture pose. The distraction though didn’t last long.

“So, why have you put lipstick on?”

“I...erm, really like your glasses.”

What she did next was both touching and impressive. Slipping her spectacles off, she offered them to me. “Do you want to look?”

Touched by her outgoing sweet nature, impressed by her strength of character, she took me back decades. As a pre-school four-year-old in glasses, I’d been a child mortified by my wire-rimmed specs, acutely ashamed of the juvenile treatments my wayward eyes required and I dreaded the company of other children. When any made reference to spectacles at all – which other kids usually did disparagingly – I’d flee in tears to my mum. Insecure and vain even then, I suppose.

Here was a little lady made of much sterner stuff. Here was a child already convinced of her worth, assured of her deserved high esteem... and utterly charming with it.

“Thanks but you put them on again,” I said quietly. “You look very pretty in them.”

“I know,” she said.

Truly wonderful. See how much there is to learn from the superior intelligence of wise, brave, perfect children in a Cumbrian village hall on a Tuesday morning?

And since I still can’t come up with an honest rationale for wearing lipstick, I might just have to go back there soon to learn a little more from the best possible teachers... the kind not to be messed with.