Shortly after midday workmen began boarding up Lloyds Pharmacy, the latest in nearly a dozen shops to put up the shutters. A police van was parked in the village. Across the street officers stopped a youth wearing the trademark apparel of the 21st-century anarchist — a black hooded top and sunglasses.

A large part of the village, the nearest settlement to the Gleneagles Hotel, was evacuated yesterday after a hoax bomb alert at the Bank of Scotland, the latest sign of the disruption to its once humdrum life. Chinook helicopters flew overhead and, high in the sky, an airship was taking surveillance pictures of the community below. As villagers gathered in the streets and waited for the all-clear, Margot, 62, who works at Auchterarder’s only filling station, shook her head. She said: “I’m just desperate to see the end of this now. It’s stupid idiots like this, making bomb hoaxes, that are ruining our lives and I’m just fed up with it. If you ask me, the summit should have been held at Chequers, where there’s better security and it would have cost a lot less. They could have given the extra money to Africa.”

Last night, in a surreal moment, a mock Darfuri village was erected on a field outside the village before being set ablaze by a charity seeking to highlight the dangers of turning a blind eye to genocide in Africa.

Amid tight security, Tayside Police said that three people had been arrested yesterday at a checkpoint close to the village. Circumstances of the arrest were not released, although officers said that those held were accused of minor public order offences.

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