Jack MacRoary's Guide to the General Election:
Episodes Nine & Ten
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: In which chips are back on the menu in the MacRoary household and Jack takes a temporary break from political reporting.
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Episode Nine – Mhairi loves chips
Because, as we know, it isn’t all over once the votes have been cast. That’s really just the beginning and so I’ve been spending this last week looking at what they call the ‘fall out’ from the General Election. Everyone said that no one expected that the Tories would get back in with a clear majority, but that just shows you that people tend to keep quiet about things they think everyone else doesn’t want to hear. Plenty of people must have wanted David Cameron back in England because they voted for him. Like plenty of people want the SNP in Scotland because they voted for them. And even though lots of people are now going on about the first past the post and the numbers and all that – that’s just people resorting to statistics to try and win their argument. And my maths teacher says that if you have to rely on statistics to win an argument the chances are that you’re on a hiding to nothing.
So while they keep telling us that nothing will ever be the same again, it’s all pretty much the same at DrumTumshie Academy. Homework, exams, boring classes and just wishing it was the weekend so I could help dad on the farm.
Back at Tattybogle of course things are different. Mum is back for one thing. Back in charge is what dad said, but he kissed her when he said it and said ‘thank goodness’, so she didn’t get annoyed with him. Over the last couple of years one of the best things about everything we’ve been through is that my parents seem to be really pulling together. It might be because of Uncle Tam, it might be because of the IndyRef, it might be because John and I are growing up… or it might just be life. You never can tell. I think it could be hope winning over fear at the end of the day.
The best thing for me about now is knowing that there’ll be chips for tea pretty often and that I don’t have to pretend to be Jamie Oliver and do cooking for the family. And guess what. I discovered this week that Mhairi Black loves chips too. I saw a picture of her eating chips outside the Houses of Parliament. So there’s hope for me yet. When I become a potato farmer, Mhairi maybe she’ll come and visit my fields and I’ll give her some of my best potatoes for her chips. I love chips. Mhairi loves chips. It’s a good start.
And in case you’re wondering, she hasn’t written back to me yet. But I didn’t expect her to. She’s too busy with important things and I can wait. My mum has read a lot of old Scottish stories on her kindle and they have boys going off to college and girls waiting for them for years all the time. And of course because we’re in a modern world of equality, you could just say that Mhairi has gone to work in London instead of college and I’ll wait her for her till her five years is up. Who knows after that? I’ll be nearly 20 then and the world will be a totally different place. I’m not saying what will happen, I’m just saying it’s what’s called an analogy and that gives me some hope. Because we can learn from analogies – things that don’t seem to be like each other but end up being quite like each other – they can teach us a lot if we are prepared to listen. I know, you probably want life to be easier than that, but as they keep telling us at school, those days are over, we are about to make a big step up to Year 9.
I’m still following what Mhairi does and not just because mum says it’s important that we keep in touch with our politicians and remind them all the time that they carry our hopes and dreams down to Westminster with them every day. I am following the others too, of course. They are like characters in my story, even though they are real people – as real as I am. My English Teacher keeps telling me that characters are not the same as real people – but sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference.
Anyway, I can tell you (but I expect you already know) that The Doctor Eilidh Whiteford has got to be the SNP Group Secretary and Alex Salmond is going to be something to do with Foreign Policy, which probably means he’s about to get into a big rammy over Europe because David Cameron wants us to ditch The European Declaration of Human Rights. Known as the Human Rights Act. Everyone else seems to think that’s daft. Not just in DrumTumshie. Everyone. Across the country. Well, not everyone of course, but as Nanny Alzheimer would say ‘right minded people’. You might think she’s not the best one to talk about being ‘right minded’ but you really shouldn’t judge people with dementia like that. Lots of the time they totally know their own mind, they are just losing bits of it. And the bits they have left are very precious and we should listen to them and respect them not just for now but for all they have been in the past.
Even Mr Marker says that, while it isn’t perfect, walking away from Human Rights would be a ridiculous thing to do. Brian the Brain said, ‘It would be a human wrong thing to do, wouldn’t it, Mr Marker?’
When he said that everyone laughed. Even Mr Marker. I think he’s beginning to understand the genius of Brian the Brain at last. Brian is like that. Mum says he’s an acquired taste. I just think it takes people time to catch up with him. As we all know, it does take all sorts to make a world. And we have all sorts here in DrumTumshie, I can tell you.
What Mr Marker, and Brian both meant was how can we call out other people on Human Rights violations and then spit the dummy ourselves and just want to make a British Human Rights Act to suit ourselves? It will cause a lot of trouble in the next wee while, that’s for sure. Because why would Scots not want a British Human Rights Act? Dad says if there was a Scottish Human Rights Act it would be that we all get chips for tea three times a week – I know he was joking but it does show you that it’s important when you’re talking about Human Rights that you agree as widely as possible, not just look to your own self-interest.
All I know is that Mr Marker is going to be nipping our head about the Human Rights Act for the rest of the term thanks to the Prime Monster – and there’s a rumour it’s going to be a whole curriculum issue for the last week before the holidays. Which is another reason why I wish David Cameron would just forget about the whole thing. I don’t think Alex Salmond will be able to shut him up before the end of June about it, will he???
In other news ,as they say, I was amazed this week when I found that Mhairi Black had started to write a serial – here’s the link. It was a piece on BBC Scotlandshire website and then it said it was going to be followed up on Twitter. Like you know, I don’t really do Twitter but I thought maybe I should set up an account and I asked John to help me. John doesn’t know any more about Twitter than I do, but his girlfriend Heather does and so Heather sat down to help me get onto Twitter but before I signed up she asked me why I wanted to and I showed her the first bit of Mhairi’s serial and she said, ‘You do know it’s a spoof?’
I didn’t know that. I thought it was Mhairi for real, and I thought that it meant we really had something in common which was writing blog type serials, so I was a bit sad. I tried not to let Heather see how upset I was and I said,
‘Ah, it’s not exactly a spoof, Heather, it’s that Mhairi has got a ghost-writer. I could have had one of them, but I decided to do all my writing for myself because I like to keep it real. But she’s probably too busy working and so she agreed to have a ghost-writer. Or maybe she doesn’t really understand the world of publishing like I do.’
And Heather said, yes that was probably the truth of it. Heather is good like that. She doesn’t want to make you feel stupid even if you have been stupid. She doesn’t even make John feel stupid, not even when he does something that is really stupid. Dad says that’s ‘true love’. I asked him how he knew and he tapped his nose and then went and kissed my mum. I told you my parents were a lot better together now, didn’t I? But not Better Together. I think everyone’s seen through that lie. Even probably Lord Smith who wrote the report (but he probably doesn’t like to say so).
And when I thought about Mhairi’s potential Twitter serial, actually I was relieved because I didn’t want to become a Twit which is what happens when you go on Twitter. Dad says it’s like a Class A drug. The ultimate legal high. You get addicted and you end up spending all your time on it and ‘reality goes out the window’. He’s probably right. And I like reality, except when I’m at school of course, but soon it’ll be the holidays and I’ll have plenty of reality then. I can’t wait.
Everyone else at Tattybogle can’t wait for the summer either. For all different reasons. But the one thing we can’t wait for most, which might happen before the summer, is Jim Spud Smurf getting his come-uppance. I’m writing this on Friday though you are reading it on Wednesday and Mum says we won’t have to wait long. He just refused to resign after the election. Nick Clegg resigned and that will probably be the last of him. Ed Miliband resigned and we can hardly remember who he was even by now. And Nigel Farage resigned then un-resigned and now who knows what’s happening in UKIP (but who ever did?). But Smurf. He wouldn’t go. Dad says no wonder. He’s got no job now and if he’s not the leader he won’t get a shot at going into Holyrood, so he’s ‘fighting for his political life’, mum says, though dad says he’s in ‘political intensive care’ right now. Dad says he’ll hang around like a bad smell for as long as he can.
‘Like a rotten egg smell?’ John asked and then we all laughed because we all remember that great day when John threw the egg. It was the proudest thing anyone in the MacRoary household ever did, I think (except for all the things my mum did in her campaigning, of course!). It was the best thing a MacRoary man did, I should say. And he did it because he loved mum and wanted to make her happy. Which is why I write. And why dad doesn’t argue with her any more. I’d go so far as to say that the MacRoary family is pretty happy these days – though of course we still have our sadnesses over Uncle Tam and our worries over Nanny Alzheimer. But then everyone has their worries, don’t they, and you just have to get on with it and live the best life you can.
And this week we saw lots of the new MP’s going around Westminster getting settled in. They got in trouble for taking selfies and pictures of things but I think that’s democracy in action. We want to see what it’s like in there and why shouldn’t we? Anyway, because of all the photo taking they were taken into the chamber (not to be shot, like John said) but to be told ‘the rules’ and one of the rules was that members are not allowed to clap in the chamber. When the man told them this rule they all burst out in applause. It was very funny and I wish I’d seen that on television! They are ‘cocking a snook’ at the establishment as mum says. And I wish them all the best. I think that #Team56 as they are now called are probably going to be as hard to manage as Brian the Brain when he’s having a meltdown in our History class. Just throw Micro the Pig into the mix and I think Westminster could be a much more lively place in the future. And when I take Modern Studies for my National 4 or 5 next year I think Mr Marker will let us watch a lot more of Question Time and I hope it will be better than last time we saw it, now we have #Team56 on the benches.
And David Cameron the Prime Monster came to see Nicola Sturgeon at Bute House in Edinburgh, which is where she lives now she is the First Minister. They don’t really like each other but she shook his hand firmly and I hope she firmly told him that he’d better watch out because we are not going to shut up now. I’m beginning to think (and I bet David Cameron is too) that it would have been easier for everyone if we’d just voted for Independence. I still can’t work out why people didn’t. I suppose because they were afraid. But as mum says, ‘The politics of fear has no part in the modern Scotland.’
I asked mum what she will do now she has no more campaigning to do? She laughed and said she’ll be putting her feet up. Not. She says she’s going to get the house back in control ready for starting to campaign for the next Holyrood elections in 2016. And she said: ‘And I’ll be able to spend much more time with you, that’ll be nice won’t it Jack?’ And of course it will but I hope I don’t have to write a serial or a blog for the next election because there will be so much more time spent on homework when I move up to year 9 that I won’t have any time for playing outside, or helping dad on the farm if I have to do that too. And I have other plans.
So in conclusion of all the General Election stuff, what can I say? That even though a lot of people are now complaining that Scotland is a ‘one party nation’ it’s what people voted for and so they should shut up like they told us to shut up when Scotland didn’t vote for Independence. We are in the Wastemonster now and we’re not going to sit quietly and do what we’re told for anyone.
Mr Marker says the rules of Parliament do not apply in DrumTumshie Academy though – and I’m sure they don’t. None of us voted to go to school, did we? Even though I know that an education is important, on a day by day basis school can be pretty dull and I expect #Team56 will find that the day to day work at the Wastemonster is pretty dull too… but at least they get paid for it.
I’m just counting the days till I leave school. Actually, I’m not really counting them because I hate numbers and the sum is far too difficult – five days a week for however many weeks of a year and… but my friend Brian the Brain has counted them and he said it was something like 456 (though one is never sure of the in-service days) till he gets to leave. Which feels like a lifetime away. A week is a long time at DrumTumshie Academy every bit as much as it is in politics. And Brian is lucky because he’ll leave sooner than me. Mum wants me to stay and do my Highers before I go to Agricultural College. I don’t want to think that I have nearly 600 days left at school… but I suppose everyone feels like that sometimes. Mhairi must have about 1000 days at the Wastemonster before she either gets re-elected, or goes to Holyrood, or gets another job. So I’ll have finished school and gone through college before the next election. Mum says not to wish my life away – but she’s not got years of school left ahead of her, has she?
But things do keep changing whether you like it or not. I mean, look at my brother John. Last year he was a waste of space thorn in everyone’s side. And now he’s at college, got a great girlfriend and they have ‘plans’ for the future. Their immediate plans are to work potato rogueing during the summer. John doesn’t even like potatoes. So I was a bit annoyed by that. I’m too young to go potato rogueing, but as soon as I can I will. John says they have other plans after that but he’s not telling me yet. Mum is still just amazed that John has ‘plans’ and Dad is just amazed that Heather wants to make plans with John. But then, John has changed. I have changed too, of course, but not as much. Real life moves a bit more slowly than politics most of the time, but things are always changing and I suppose that’s just the way life is. Even though I don’t feel like I’m changing, I am growing up because I’m not Peter Pan. Sometimes I wish I was though – don’t you? I don’t mean Wendy and Tinkerbell and Fairies and things, I mean being able to be young forever – but only if you don’t have to go to school!
Episode Ten – You haven’t seen the last of me
BREAKING NEWS – A DAY’S A LONG TIME IN POLITICS AND JIM MURPHY HAD A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE….but they said they had confidence in him, apart from the Unions didn’t and then he said he would resign but he’s not resigning straight away because he wants to rebuild the Scottish Labour Party before he goes and he reckons he can do that in a month.
A lot of people seem to think that that’s the end of Jim Murphy. But I know better. If a week is a long time in politics think how much can change in a month and dad agrees with me that he’s going to be harder to shift than cowshite on your shoes. I watched his resignation speech on television and it’s not so much that he’s lost the plot as that he is making up his own plot and he’s convinced that he’ll be able to get us to go along with it.
I ask you. Did Darth Vader go quietly? Didn’t Moriarty come back from the dead? How many comebacks do Boy Bands have? And you think we’ve heard the end of Spud? No way.
But in the MacRoary household he’s a spent force. We will never forgive him for what happened to Uncle Tam, but now dad just says about him, ‘If he was funny he’d be a joke.’ And John says he wouldn’t waste the effort of an egg on him these days. ‘His face is more than covered with it now,’ John said. So we have got Hope over Fear and Spud the Smurf has no power over us any more. But you should expect a come-back. Of course I’m not a political pundit and I don’t predict the future but I’m guessing he’ll come up with some kick ass plan that will ‘save’ the Labour Party in Scotland and he’ll be expecting everyone to get behind him as the best hope for the post-post-New Labour Party in Scotland – failing that he might do a Tommy Sheridan and simply form his own party. What would it be called? ‘Real Labour’ is my best guess.
Mum says the man is deluded and says it’s what comes of believing his own press. One thing that’s for sure, you won’t see old Jim Smurf out working for free in food banks helping folks and I bet he’ll never take on a job with a zero hours contract. Well, actually, that’s the sort of job he likes best isn’t it? His jobs have zero hours because no one wants him to do the job but he just does it anyway and doubtless has been well paid for doing it. But that’s more than enough time spent on him. His ruthless self-promotion requires no endorsement from me, even if I’m saying he’s just driving the gravy train all the way to the silly season and will spring back out of the ground like something from a bad horror movie.
And of course I’ll be back too. But this is my final episode for now. It’s time for me to stop writing for a while and start living my real life again. I’d like to think that if we held a vote of confidence for me then everyone would want me to carry on, but please don’t because I’ve got other things to do with my life and it’s coming up for summer so I want to be out helping dad.
But it’s not the end of this boy. No way. This summer Mr McStoryteller is going to publish all my stories to date as The Complete Tattybogle and I hope you will buy it and enjoy reading it. It goes right back to when I was 11.
That was in 2012 when I first started writing, and I became the Bard of DrumTumshie for the World Writers Conference. I think I have come quite a long way since then. I was a cultural commentator then and more recently I’ve been a sort of political commentator and in the future I think I’m going to be a social commentator. Commentator just means giving you my opinion and you can agree with it or not but maybe you like to listen to what I say and maybe it makes you think differently about what you think. Or not. I just tell it like I see it and you make what you will out of that.
This week some people wanted me to go back to being a cultural commentator. But I told them, sometimes in life you can’t go back even if people want you to. Let me explain. During the Referendum and the run up to the General Election I’ve not been the only one commentating. Far from it. And culture has become something of a ‘battleground’ for competing teams. There’s the National Collective and Bella Caledonia and ‘The National’ newspaper and any number of Facebook Groups all claiming to represent the voice of the people. Whether the people ask them to or not. Probably that’s where Jim Murphy got the idea from. At least I don’t claim to speak for the people, I’m just speaking for me.
Well, all these groups have been growing in the aftermath of the IndyRef and probably looking for money to keep them going because unlike me they don’t work for free. And now they are trying to set up a new thing called cultural activism Scotland and after the election they had this thing about Culture and the way forward. It was a day at the Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh and loads of writers and artists and people interested in ‘culture’ were there. But I wasn’t invited. I never found out about it till afterwards. Nor did you probably. Which is funny because you couldn’t escape hearing all about the election for months before hand, could you? I expect they didn’t have ‘the budget’. Or maybe they just didn’t want our votes.
Mum said the whole thing was just for the ‘elite’. She made me read some of their ‘provocations’ which is their posh way of saying speeches or lectures. Well, when I was The Bard of DrumTumshie I could have given my thoughts on what they said. But when I left Tattybogle Primary school and moved up to the Academy, I grew up and gave up on cultural commentating. I think maybe some of these people should do the same thing. I’m not sure cultural commentating is much of a job for anyone over the age of 13.
Dad says it’s sad to see them all– like headless chickens running around trying to work out how to keep themselves out of the pot. Mum says they are more like pigs trying to keep their noses in the trough. But farming analogies aside, they all just seem to be consumed by trying to work out why they aren’t all getting a good living wage out of ‘making culture’. So I will just say – they need to ‘wake up’ and ‘get real’. Culture is all around us. Like nature. You don’t ‘make’ culture any more than you make nature. You can try and shape it or dominate it or ‘improve’ it or own it but when it comes down to it, we are our culture and those in power and the elites should realise this and stop trying to tell us who we are and how we should be.
And that’s why Land Reform and Culture might have more in common than we have ever thought about. Maybe we need Culture Reform in Scotland too. But it’s not the people who are making a living out of culture who need to be telling us how to reform it any more than it is the big landowners who should decide how Land Reform happens. In my opinion.
Because I think that at the root of everything is surely the fact that the land we live in and on and the culture which is a part of our identity exists freely for everyone and should not be used by people in power or turned into something just to make money with the ordinary people forgotten about. Culture grows from inside people, from who they are and what they believe and if you try to ‘make’ culture for people you are trying to fence them in (or keep them out) just as much as landowners do. And it’s not right.
Today’s Scotland is a country of Big Voices and wee voices. And the Big Voices need to start listening to the wee voices rather than the sound of their own Big Voices shouting at each other either in argument or in agreement. They all talk about grassroots engagement but they don’t let the grass grow, they attack it with their electric Flymo’s, bought from a Hypermarket and made in China. They pick flowers and turn them into installations. They kill animals and show them off in cases of formaldehyde and they are ‘alienated’ from the very grassroots they say they want to get in touch with. I remember my Uncle Tam told me about this when I was being the Bard of DrumTumshie. And it’s just as true now he’s dead as it was when he was alive.
It occurs to me that the people ‘making’ culture as a job are as out of touch of real Scots culture as Jim Murphy and Ed Miliband are of the ‘working people’ they say they represent. So my final comment on culture is this and I offer it to all the Big Voices and to the people who think they speak for other people but have no understanding that there are many kinds of culture like there are many types of grass – and who don’t understand that you can’t just replace everything with artificial turf because its more financially ‘viable’.
My advice is that those people ‘making culture’ should listen to the wee voices. They are not the voices in the theatres or in the publishing houses or universities or urban cafes and restaurants. That’s one kind of culture, yes. It’s the culture of the mainstream and the elite. And of course they have a right to exist, and, in their way, to be proud of themselves if they like. But the way I see it, at the moment mainstream and ‘alternative’ culture in Scotland are pretty much like Red and Blue Tories. We need to stop listening to them and start believing in our own culture and not listen when they tell us we’re parochial or ‘too wee, too poor, too stupid’.
To the Jim Murphys of Scottish Culture, I say get out into the streets. Get out into the fields. Get out to where people are and listen to them. But don’t expect us to pay your bus fare. Don’t think you’ve come to ‘save’ us or ‘teach’ us. Come to listen and learn. Our culture may not be your culture but it’s growing fine in our own fields thanks. But if you come trying to make money out of us then no smart mouthed pious talk about zero hours contracts or food banks or ‘growing culture’ will wash with us. I’m sure some of you Big Voices might even like some of us wee voices if you get to know us. I know you’ll find us a bit scary because we see the world differently to you. But everyone is welcome at DrumTumshie. Tattybogle is a place of peace. If you want to give us anything, give us opportunities. Then we can be like #Team56 and really get the chance to stand up for Scotland.
There’s a lot of talk at the moment about Scotland being a one party state because of the SNP. But it doesn’t have to be. We can embrace diversity – but we have to start by embracing diversity in our many cultures and accepting that the old ‘new’ ways aren’t the only ones. I think we need to say ‘as in politics, so in culture’ and look for a way ahead that lets everyone’s voice be heard no matter how rich they are or how well connected.
Everyone was so surprised by Mhairi Black. But there are loads of Mhairi Blacks out there. They just need the opportunity. And they will turn things over and make the country a better place for the future. I’d like to thank you for reading my serial over the last few months and to Mr McStoryteller for allowing me to be on McStorytellers each week. He and you together give me my voice. You vote for me each time you read my writing. And like I said, you haven’t heard the end of this boy yet. I’m not resigning and I’ll be back with my next project very soon but I’ve got to go and get some ‘life experience’ before I have more to say.
There’s plenty of other wee voices to read while I’m away though. You might have seen that I am now in a group called McRenegades, and that’s where wee voices can go to speak out. I expect there are lots more groups like that. But you might have to go looking for them because they are not sponsored by Nike or funded by The Lottery or part of the ‘cultural scene’. But they are out there, believe me.
I like to think that we are all part of #Teamweevoice. I think it’s a more important team and stands more chance of success than our Football Team or our Rugby Team or even our Curling or Bowls Team. #Teamweevoice and #TeamScotland is a team you don’t just get behind, it’s a team you’re playing in. If you want to.
Of course, every farmer understands that the saying ‘you reap what you sow’ isn’t just for the Bible. So maybe it’s time we all started planting, to try and make our country and then the world a better place. Whether we are farmers or politicians or people in towns or people in the country, all of us need to get together and build the Scotland we want to live in. That’s what the whole Independence Referendum and General Election has taught me. And mum says that’s about the best lesson I could have learned in life. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t learn that lesson in school, but I thought she might think I was being cheeky, so I kept quiet. Because I’ve learned that sometimes it’s right to keep quiet. But not always. Often it’s good to let the ‘lion roar’. It’s what Uncle Tam would have wanted, isn’t it?
Swearwords: None.
Description: In which chips are back on the menu in the MacRoary household and Jack takes a temporary break from political reporting.
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Episode Nine – Mhairi loves chips
Because, as we know, it isn’t all over once the votes have been cast. That’s really just the beginning and so I’ve been spending this last week looking at what they call the ‘fall out’ from the General Election. Everyone said that no one expected that the Tories would get back in with a clear majority, but that just shows you that people tend to keep quiet about things they think everyone else doesn’t want to hear. Plenty of people must have wanted David Cameron back in England because they voted for him. Like plenty of people want the SNP in Scotland because they voted for them. And even though lots of people are now going on about the first past the post and the numbers and all that – that’s just people resorting to statistics to try and win their argument. And my maths teacher says that if you have to rely on statistics to win an argument the chances are that you’re on a hiding to nothing.
So while they keep telling us that nothing will ever be the same again, it’s all pretty much the same at DrumTumshie Academy. Homework, exams, boring classes and just wishing it was the weekend so I could help dad on the farm.
Back at Tattybogle of course things are different. Mum is back for one thing. Back in charge is what dad said, but he kissed her when he said it and said ‘thank goodness’, so she didn’t get annoyed with him. Over the last couple of years one of the best things about everything we’ve been through is that my parents seem to be really pulling together. It might be because of Uncle Tam, it might be because of the IndyRef, it might be because John and I are growing up… or it might just be life. You never can tell. I think it could be hope winning over fear at the end of the day.
The best thing for me about now is knowing that there’ll be chips for tea pretty often and that I don’t have to pretend to be Jamie Oliver and do cooking for the family. And guess what. I discovered this week that Mhairi Black loves chips too. I saw a picture of her eating chips outside the Houses of Parliament. So there’s hope for me yet. When I become a potato farmer, Mhairi maybe she’ll come and visit my fields and I’ll give her some of my best potatoes for her chips. I love chips. Mhairi loves chips. It’s a good start.
And in case you’re wondering, she hasn’t written back to me yet. But I didn’t expect her to. She’s too busy with important things and I can wait. My mum has read a lot of old Scottish stories on her kindle and they have boys going off to college and girls waiting for them for years all the time. And of course because we’re in a modern world of equality, you could just say that Mhairi has gone to work in London instead of college and I’ll wait her for her till her five years is up. Who knows after that? I’ll be nearly 20 then and the world will be a totally different place. I’m not saying what will happen, I’m just saying it’s what’s called an analogy and that gives me some hope. Because we can learn from analogies – things that don’t seem to be like each other but end up being quite like each other – they can teach us a lot if we are prepared to listen. I know, you probably want life to be easier than that, but as they keep telling us at school, those days are over, we are about to make a big step up to Year 9.
I’m still following what Mhairi does and not just because mum says it’s important that we keep in touch with our politicians and remind them all the time that they carry our hopes and dreams down to Westminster with them every day. I am following the others too, of course. They are like characters in my story, even though they are real people – as real as I am. My English Teacher keeps telling me that characters are not the same as real people – but sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference.
Anyway, I can tell you (but I expect you already know) that The Doctor Eilidh Whiteford has got to be the SNP Group Secretary and Alex Salmond is going to be something to do with Foreign Policy, which probably means he’s about to get into a big rammy over Europe because David Cameron wants us to ditch The European Declaration of Human Rights. Known as the Human Rights Act. Everyone else seems to think that’s daft. Not just in DrumTumshie. Everyone. Across the country. Well, not everyone of course, but as Nanny Alzheimer would say ‘right minded people’. You might think she’s not the best one to talk about being ‘right minded’ but you really shouldn’t judge people with dementia like that. Lots of the time they totally know their own mind, they are just losing bits of it. And the bits they have left are very precious and we should listen to them and respect them not just for now but for all they have been in the past.
Even Mr Marker says that, while it isn’t perfect, walking away from Human Rights would be a ridiculous thing to do. Brian the Brain said, ‘It would be a human wrong thing to do, wouldn’t it, Mr Marker?’
When he said that everyone laughed. Even Mr Marker. I think he’s beginning to understand the genius of Brian the Brain at last. Brian is like that. Mum says he’s an acquired taste. I just think it takes people time to catch up with him. As we all know, it does take all sorts to make a world. And we have all sorts here in DrumTumshie, I can tell you.
What Mr Marker, and Brian both meant was how can we call out other people on Human Rights violations and then spit the dummy ourselves and just want to make a British Human Rights Act to suit ourselves? It will cause a lot of trouble in the next wee while, that’s for sure. Because why would Scots not want a British Human Rights Act? Dad says if there was a Scottish Human Rights Act it would be that we all get chips for tea three times a week – I know he was joking but it does show you that it’s important when you’re talking about Human Rights that you agree as widely as possible, not just look to your own self-interest.
All I know is that Mr Marker is going to be nipping our head about the Human Rights Act for the rest of the term thanks to the Prime Monster – and there’s a rumour it’s going to be a whole curriculum issue for the last week before the holidays. Which is another reason why I wish David Cameron would just forget about the whole thing. I don’t think Alex Salmond will be able to shut him up before the end of June about it, will he???
In other news ,as they say, I was amazed this week when I found that Mhairi Black had started to write a serial – here’s the link. It was a piece on BBC Scotlandshire website and then it said it was going to be followed up on Twitter. Like you know, I don’t really do Twitter but I thought maybe I should set up an account and I asked John to help me. John doesn’t know any more about Twitter than I do, but his girlfriend Heather does and so Heather sat down to help me get onto Twitter but before I signed up she asked me why I wanted to and I showed her the first bit of Mhairi’s serial and she said, ‘You do know it’s a spoof?’
I didn’t know that. I thought it was Mhairi for real, and I thought that it meant we really had something in common which was writing blog type serials, so I was a bit sad. I tried not to let Heather see how upset I was and I said,
‘Ah, it’s not exactly a spoof, Heather, it’s that Mhairi has got a ghost-writer. I could have had one of them, but I decided to do all my writing for myself because I like to keep it real. But she’s probably too busy working and so she agreed to have a ghost-writer. Or maybe she doesn’t really understand the world of publishing like I do.’
And Heather said, yes that was probably the truth of it. Heather is good like that. She doesn’t want to make you feel stupid even if you have been stupid. She doesn’t even make John feel stupid, not even when he does something that is really stupid. Dad says that’s ‘true love’. I asked him how he knew and he tapped his nose and then went and kissed my mum. I told you my parents were a lot better together now, didn’t I? But not Better Together. I think everyone’s seen through that lie. Even probably Lord Smith who wrote the report (but he probably doesn’t like to say so).
And when I thought about Mhairi’s potential Twitter serial, actually I was relieved because I didn’t want to become a Twit which is what happens when you go on Twitter. Dad says it’s like a Class A drug. The ultimate legal high. You get addicted and you end up spending all your time on it and ‘reality goes out the window’. He’s probably right. And I like reality, except when I’m at school of course, but soon it’ll be the holidays and I’ll have plenty of reality then. I can’t wait.
Everyone else at Tattybogle can’t wait for the summer either. For all different reasons. But the one thing we can’t wait for most, which might happen before the summer, is Jim Spud Smurf getting his come-uppance. I’m writing this on Friday though you are reading it on Wednesday and Mum says we won’t have to wait long. He just refused to resign after the election. Nick Clegg resigned and that will probably be the last of him. Ed Miliband resigned and we can hardly remember who he was even by now. And Nigel Farage resigned then un-resigned and now who knows what’s happening in UKIP (but who ever did?). But Smurf. He wouldn’t go. Dad says no wonder. He’s got no job now and if he’s not the leader he won’t get a shot at going into Holyrood, so he’s ‘fighting for his political life’, mum says, though dad says he’s in ‘political intensive care’ right now. Dad says he’ll hang around like a bad smell for as long as he can.
‘Like a rotten egg smell?’ John asked and then we all laughed because we all remember that great day when John threw the egg. It was the proudest thing anyone in the MacRoary household ever did, I think (except for all the things my mum did in her campaigning, of course!). It was the best thing a MacRoary man did, I should say. And he did it because he loved mum and wanted to make her happy. Which is why I write. And why dad doesn’t argue with her any more. I’d go so far as to say that the MacRoary family is pretty happy these days – though of course we still have our sadnesses over Uncle Tam and our worries over Nanny Alzheimer. But then everyone has their worries, don’t they, and you just have to get on with it and live the best life you can.
And this week we saw lots of the new MP’s going around Westminster getting settled in. They got in trouble for taking selfies and pictures of things but I think that’s democracy in action. We want to see what it’s like in there and why shouldn’t we? Anyway, because of all the photo taking they were taken into the chamber (not to be shot, like John said) but to be told ‘the rules’ and one of the rules was that members are not allowed to clap in the chamber. When the man told them this rule they all burst out in applause. It was very funny and I wish I’d seen that on television! They are ‘cocking a snook’ at the establishment as mum says. And I wish them all the best. I think that #Team56 as they are now called are probably going to be as hard to manage as Brian the Brain when he’s having a meltdown in our History class. Just throw Micro the Pig into the mix and I think Westminster could be a much more lively place in the future. And when I take Modern Studies for my National 4 or 5 next year I think Mr Marker will let us watch a lot more of Question Time and I hope it will be better than last time we saw it, now we have #Team56 on the benches.
And David Cameron the Prime Monster came to see Nicola Sturgeon at Bute House in Edinburgh, which is where she lives now she is the First Minister. They don’t really like each other but she shook his hand firmly and I hope she firmly told him that he’d better watch out because we are not going to shut up now. I’m beginning to think (and I bet David Cameron is too) that it would have been easier for everyone if we’d just voted for Independence. I still can’t work out why people didn’t. I suppose because they were afraid. But as mum says, ‘The politics of fear has no part in the modern Scotland.’
I asked mum what she will do now she has no more campaigning to do? She laughed and said she’ll be putting her feet up. Not. She says she’s going to get the house back in control ready for starting to campaign for the next Holyrood elections in 2016. And she said: ‘And I’ll be able to spend much more time with you, that’ll be nice won’t it Jack?’ And of course it will but I hope I don’t have to write a serial or a blog for the next election because there will be so much more time spent on homework when I move up to year 9 that I won’t have any time for playing outside, or helping dad on the farm if I have to do that too. And I have other plans.
So in conclusion of all the General Election stuff, what can I say? That even though a lot of people are now complaining that Scotland is a ‘one party nation’ it’s what people voted for and so they should shut up like they told us to shut up when Scotland didn’t vote for Independence. We are in the Wastemonster now and we’re not going to sit quietly and do what we’re told for anyone.
Mr Marker says the rules of Parliament do not apply in DrumTumshie Academy though – and I’m sure they don’t. None of us voted to go to school, did we? Even though I know that an education is important, on a day by day basis school can be pretty dull and I expect #Team56 will find that the day to day work at the Wastemonster is pretty dull too… but at least they get paid for it.
I’m just counting the days till I leave school. Actually, I’m not really counting them because I hate numbers and the sum is far too difficult – five days a week for however many weeks of a year and… but my friend Brian the Brain has counted them and he said it was something like 456 (though one is never sure of the in-service days) till he gets to leave. Which feels like a lifetime away. A week is a long time at DrumTumshie Academy every bit as much as it is in politics. And Brian is lucky because he’ll leave sooner than me. Mum wants me to stay and do my Highers before I go to Agricultural College. I don’t want to think that I have nearly 600 days left at school… but I suppose everyone feels like that sometimes. Mhairi must have about 1000 days at the Wastemonster before she either gets re-elected, or goes to Holyrood, or gets another job. So I’ll have finished school and gone through college before the next election. Mum says not to wish my life away – but she’s not got years of school left ahead of her, has she?
But things do keep changing whether you like it or not. I mean, look at my brother John. Last year he was a waste of space thorn in everyone’s side. And now he’s at college, got a great girlfriend and they have ‘plans’ for the future. Their immediate plans are to work potato rogueing during the summer. John doesn’t even like potatoes. So I was a bit annoyed by that. I’m too young to go potato rogueing, but as soon as I can I will. John says they have other plans after that but he’s not telling me yet. Mum is still just amazed that John has ‘plans’ and Dad is just amazed that Heather wants to make plans with John. But then, John has changed. I have changed too, of course, but not as much. Real life moves a bit more slowly than politics most of the time, but things are always changing and I suppose that’s just the way life is. Even though I don’t feel like I’m changing, I am growing up because I’m not Peter Pan. Sometimes I wish I was though – don’t you? I don’t mean Wendy and Tinkerbell and Fairies and things, I mean being able to be young forever – but only if you don’t have to go to school!
Episode Ten – You haven’t seen the last of me
BREAKING NEWS – A DAY’S A LONG TIME IN POLITICS AND JIM MURPHY HAD A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE….but they said they had confidence in him, apart from the Unions didn’t and then he said he would resign but he’s not resigning straight away because he wants to rebuild the Scottish Labour Party before he goes and he reckons he can do that in a month.
A lot of people seem to think that that’s the end of Jim Murphy. But I know better. If a week is a long time in politics think how much can change in a month and dad agrees with me that he’s going to be harder to shift than cowshite on your shoes. I watched his resignation speech on television and it’s not so much that he’s lost the plot as that he is making up his own plot and he’s convinced that he’ll be able to get us to go along with it.
I ask you. Did Darth Vader go quietly? Didn’t Moriarty come back from the dead? How many comebacks do Boy Bands have? And you think we’ve heard the end of Spud? No way.
But in the MacRoary household he’s a spent force. We will never forgive him for what happened to Uncle Tam, but now dad just says about him, ‘If he was funny he’d be a joke.’ And John says he wouldn’t waste the effort of an egg on him these days. ‘His face is more than covered with it now,’ John said. So we have got Hope over Fear and Spud the Smurf has no power over us any more. But you should expect a come-back. Of course I’m not a political pundit and I don’t predict the future but I’m guessing he’ll come up with some kick ass plan that will ‘save’ the Labour Party in Scotland and he’ll be expecting everyone to get behind him as the best hope for the post-post-New Labour Party in Scotland – failing that he might do a Tommy Sheridan and simply form his own party. What would it be called? ‘Real Labour’ is my best guess.
Mum says the man is deluded and says it’s what comes of believing his own press. One thing that’s for sure, you won’t see old Jim Smurf out working for free in food banks helping folks and I bet he’ll never take on a job with a zero hours contract. Well, actually, that’s the sort of job he likes best isn’t it? His jobs have zero hours because no one wants him to do the job but he just does it anyway and doubtless has been well paid for doing it. But that’s more than enough time spent on him. His ruthless self-promotion requires no endorsement from me, even if I’m saying he’s just driving the gravy train all the way to the silly season and will spring back out of the ground like something from a bad horror movie.
And of course I’ll be back too. But this is my final episode for now. It’s time for me to stop writing for a while and start living my real life again. I’d like to think that if we held a vote of confidence for me then everyone would want me to carry on, but please don’t because I’ve got other things to do with my life and it’s coming up for summer so I want to be out helping dad.
But it’s not the end of this boy. No way. This summer Mr McStoryteller is going to publish all my stories to date as The Complete Tattybogle and I hope you will buy it and enjoy reading it. It goes right back to when I was 11.
That was in 2012 when I first started writing, and I became the Bard of DrumTumshie for the World Writers Conference. I think I have come quite a long way since then. I was a cultural commentator then and more recently I’ve been a sort of political commentator and in the future I think I’m going to be a social commentator. Commentator just means giving you my opinion and you can agree with it or not but maybe you like to listen to what I say and maybe it makes you think differently about what you think. Or not. I just tell it like I see it and you make what you will out of that.
This week some people wanted me to go back to being a cultural commentator. But I told them, sometimes in life you can’t go back even if people want you to. Let me explain. During the Referendum and the run up to the General Election I’ve not been the only one commentating. Far from it. And culture has become something of a ‘battleground’ for competing teams. There’s the National Collective and Bella Caledonia and ‘The National’ newspaper and any number of Facebook Groups all claiming to represent the voice of the people. Whether the people ask them to or not. Probably that’s where Jim Murphy got the idea from. At least I don’t claim to speak for the people, I’m just speaking for me.
Well, all these groups have been growing in the aftermath of the IndyRef and probably looking for money to keep them going because unlike me they don’t work for free. And now they are trying to set up a new thing called cultural activism Scotland and after the election they had this thing about Culture and the way forward. It was a day at the Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh and loads of writers and artists and people interested in ‘culture’ were there. But I wasn’t invited. I never found out about it till afterwards. Nor did you probably. Which is funny because you couldn’t escape hearing all about the election for months before hand, could you? I expect they didn’t have ‘the budget’. Or maybe they just didn’t want our votes.
Mum said the whole thing was just for the ‘elite’. She made me read some of their ‘provocations’ which is their posh way of saying speeches or lectures. Well, when I was The Bard of DrumTumshie I could have given my thoughts on what they said. But when I left Tattybogle Primary school and moved up to the Academy, I grew up and gave up on cultural commentating. I think maybe some of these people should do the same thing. I’m not sure cultural commentating is much of a job for anyone over the age of 13.
Dad says it’s sad to see them all– like headless chickens running around trying to work out how to keep themselves out of the pot. Mum says they are more like pigs trying to keep their noses in the trough. But farming analogies aside, they all just seem to be consumed by trying to work out why they aren’t all getting a good living wage out of ‘making culture’. So I will just say – they need to ‘wake up’ and ‘get real’. Culture is all around us. Like nature. You don’t ‘make’ culture any more than you make nature. You can try and shape it or dominate it or ‘improve’ it or own it but when it comes down to it, we are our culture and those in power and the elites should realise this and stop trying to tell us who we are and how we should be.
And that’s why Land Reform and Culture might have more in common than we have ever thought about. Maybe we need Culture Reform in Scotland too. But it’s not the people who are making a living out of culture who need to be telling us how to reform it any more than it is the big landowners who should decide how Land Reform happens. In my opinion.
Because I think that at the root of everything is surely the fact that the land we live in and on and the culture which is a part of our identity exists freely for everyone and should not be used by people in power or turned into something just to make money with the ordinary people forgotten about. Culture grows from inside people, from who they are and what they believe and if you try to ‘make’ culture for people you are trying to fence them in (or keep them out) just as much as landowners do. And it’s not right.
Today’s Scotland is a country of Big Voices and wee voices. And the Big Voices need to start listening to the wee voices rather than the sound of their own Big Voices shouting at each other either in argument or in agreement. They all talk about grassroots engagement but they don’t let the grass grow, they attack it with their electric Flymo’s, bought from a Hypermarket and made in China. They pick flowers and turn them into installations. They kill animals and show them off in cases of formaldehyde and they are ‘alienated’ from the very grassroots they say they want to get in touch with. I remember my Uncle Tam told me about this when I was being the Bard of DrumTumshie. And it’s just as true now he’s dead as it was when he was alive.
It occurs to me that the people ‘making’ culture as a job are as out of touch of real Scots culture as Jim Murphy and Ed Miliband are of the ‘working people’ they say they represent. So my final comment on culture is this and I offer it to all the Big Voices and to the people who think they speak for other people but have no understanding that there are many kinds of culture like there are many types of grass – and who don’t understand that you can’t just replace everything with artificial turf because its more financially ‘viable’.
My advice is that those people ‘making culture’ should listen to the wee voices. They are not the voices in the theatres or in the publishing houses or universities or urban cafes and restaurants. That’s one kind of culture, yes. It’s the culture of the mainstream and the elite. And of course they have a right to exist, and, in their way, to be proud of themselves if they like. But the way I see it, at the moment mainstream and ‘alternative’ culture in Scotland are pretty much like Red and Blue Tories. We need to stop listening to them and start believing in our own culture and not listen when they tell us we’re parochial or ‘too wee, too poor, too stupid’.
To the Jim Murphys of Scottish Culture, I say get out into the streets. Get out into the fields. Get out to where people are and listen to them. But don’t expect us to pay your bus fare. Don’t think you’ve come to ‘save’ us or ‘teach’ us. Come to listen and learn. Our culture may not be your culture but it’s growing fine in our own fields thanks. But if you come trying to make money out of us then no smart mouthed pious talk about zero hours contracts or food banks or ‘growing culture’ will wash with us. I’m sure some of you Big Voices might even like some of us wee voices if you get to know us. I know you’ll find us a bit scary because we see the world differently to you. But everyone is welcome at DrumTumshie. Tattybogle is a place of peace. If you want to give us anything, give us opportunities. Then we can be like #Team56 and really get the chance to stand up for Scotland.
There’s a lot of talk at the moment about Scotland being a one party state because of the SNP. But it doesn’t have to be. We can embrace diversity – but we have to start by embracing diversity in our many cultures and accepting that the old ‘new’ ways aren’t the only ones. I think we need to say ‘as in politics, so in culture’ and look for a way ahead that lets everyone’s voice be heard no matter how rich they are or how well connected.
Everyone was so surprised by Mhairi Black. But there are loads of Mhairi Blacks out there. They just need the opportunity. And they will turn things over and make the country a better place for the future. I’d like to thank you for reading my serial over the last few months and to Mr McStoryteller for allowing me to be on McStorytellers each week. He and you together give me my voice. You vote for me each time you read my writing. And like I said, you haven’t heard the end of this boy yet. I’m not resigning and I’ll be back with my next project very soon but I’ve got to go and get some ‘life experience’ before I have more to say.
There’s plenty of other wee voices to read while I’m away though. You might have seen that I am now in a group called McRenegades, and that’s where wee voices can go to speak out. I expect there are lots more groups like that. But you might have to go looking for them because they are not sponsored by Nike or funded by The Lottery or part of the ‘cultural scene’. But they are out there, believe me.
I like to think that we are all part of #Teamweevoice. I think it’s a more important team and stands more chance of success than our Football Team or our Rugby Team or even our Curling or Bowls Team. #Teamweevoice and #TeamScotland is a team you don’t just get behind, it’s a team you’re playing in. If you want to.
Of course, every farmer understands that the saying ‘you reap what you sow’ isn’t just for the Bible. So maybe it’s time we all started planting, to try and make our country and then the world a better place. Whether we are farmers or politicians or people in towns or people in the country, all of us need to get together and build the Scotland we want to live in. That’s what the whole Independence Referendum and General Election has taught me. And mum says that’s about the best lesson I could have learned in life. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t learn that lesson in school, but I thought she might think I was being cheeky, so I kept quiet. Because I’ve learned that sometimes it’s right to keep quiet. But not always. Often it’s good to let the ‘lion roar’. It’s what Uncle Tam would have wanted, isn’t it?
About the Author
Jack MacRoary, also known locally as the Bard of DrumTumshie, comes from the small farming community of Tattybogle, which he has singlehandedly put ‘on the map’ through his fame. After bursting onto the literary cultural scene in August 2012 when he appeared at the inaugural Edinburgh eBook Festival, Jack now attends DrumTumshie Academy. His current ebooks are Tales from Tattybogle (available from Amazon here and Kobo here) and More Tales from Tattybogle (available from Amazon here and Kobo here). He is also the first McStorytellers McSerial writer.
Jack lives on a farm with his dad, mum, older brother John and a range of animals and pets, including Dug (the cat), Bisum (the dog) and Micro (the pig). His ebooks give an insight into rural life, as well as providing an insightful commentary on Scots culture.
Follow Jack on Facebook here.
Jack lives on a farm with his dad, mum, older brother John and a range of animals and pets, including Dug (the cat), Bisum (the dog) and Micro (the pig). His ebooks give an insight into rural life, as well as providing an insightful commentary on Scots culture.
Follow Jack on Facebook here.