Julie Andrews is club’s secret weapon

Songs from The Sound of Music are being used as unlikely weapons in the battle against unruly youngsters in Inverness.

Youth club leaders play songs from the 1960s musical starring Julie Andrews when youngsters refuse to leave a city community centre at the end of weekly club nights.

When My Favourite Things and The Hills Are Alive come blasting out of the centre’s stereo, the youngsters run for the door. Nursery rhymes have also been used to clear out the building, leading to a similar mass exodus.

The tactics are being used at the end of youth club evenings at Hilton Community Centre in Oldtown Road, Hilton, on Thursdays. Hilton councillor John Finnie said: “It’s a fascinating use of music and seems to do the trick. We have to hope the youngsters don’t suddenly develop a taste for musicals.”

The belief is the tunes are so unpopular with hip, modern-thinking youngsters that those who previously refused to leave at the end of the night are now happy to go home at the 10pm closing time.

The club, which offers activities from football and basketball to computer games, has become increasingly popular, attracting up to 30 secondary pupils each week.

The six people who staff the venue have suffered regular verbal abuse, however, and even threats from a small number of youngsters, in particular at “going home” time, prompting the ingenious “exit procedure”.

Centre spokeswoman Gillian Simpson said: “It’s actually proving quite successful. They go ‘oh no’, so we no longer have to encourage them to leave.”

She added: “We were having a few problems at exit time.

“It was probably from simply stopping their enjoyment. But we all have beds to go home to at some point, so this seems to be working quite satisfactorily.”