Jack MacRoary's Fairtrade Adventure
Episode Thirteen
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: March 12th – The Big Fairtrade Breakfast.
Swearwords: None.
Description: March 12th – The Big Fairtrade Breakfast.
I’ve brought you right up to date with our Fairtrade adventure now because today was a big day in DrumTumshie – the day of our Big Fairtrade Breakfast. Which is the last thing we need to do to get our full Fairtrade School Award. We have done all the re-auditing and data collection and all that kind of thing. Just the final event to go and we’ll be a bona fide Fairtrade School. We are even getting a visit to the event by someone from Fairtrade. So they can check that we’ve really done all the things we wrote to them about. I think they can’t believe all that we’ve achieved in TattyBogle and DrumTumshie. In such a short time. One thing is for sure, everyone round here knows about Fairtrade, even if they don’t support it. But most of them do support it.
Our Big Final Event was timed to fit in with the last day of Fairtrade Fortnight. We planned that, it wasn’t just a fluke like Brian’s winning header. The Theme for Fairtrade fortnight is called Sit Down for Breakfast. Stand up for Farmers. Which is great, because I’m the son of a farmer and I want to be a farmer when I leave school. And we all know that eating breakfast is important.
We had this Fairtrade Breakfast on a Saturday, in DrumTumshie Town Hall, so that everyone in the whole of DrumTumshie and TattyBogle could come and share it. And we included some things that are not really Fairtrade but should be. Like milk and bacon. We sourced them locally. And paid a fair price direct to the producer. We didn’t just hop into the supermarket for them. No, we put in the effort. It wasn’t that hard actually because Melissa’s aunt and uncle are pig farmers and Brian’s mum’s brother-in-law is one of the last dairy farmers in the North East of Scotland. And when we explained to them about the whole Fairtrade thing (including Farmers for Fairtrade) they said why the hell not and they agreed to supply us with the goods AND come and talk at the breakfast about being fair to farmers.
It was lucky really, because it meant that we could have bacon and eggs – it was easy to get free range eggs because just about everyone round here grows their own – for their Fairtrade breakfast. And you try and tell a farmer that his breakfast isn’t going to include bacon and eggs and see how far you get.
For the kids it’s great to have a breakfast that can be a chocolate bar or a biscuit, not many adults really want to eat (or want to admit to eating) chocolate for breakfast and it’s hard to convince anyone that that’s part of a healthy nutritious breakfast. We did get some Fairtrade muesli but it’s pretty expensive and since everyone who came to the Breakfast had to pay a fair price, most people preferred bacon and eggs.
What about toast? Well, you can buy Fairtrade jam and honey and even marmalade, but it’s quite expensive. Sourcing Fairtrade wheat is pretty hard to do, even though we live in the middle of a place where loads of people grow crops. Mostly though they grow barley round here. But Brian’s mum, who has got really into Fairtrade, came through for us and she managed to find some organic wheatflour, sourced direct from a small producer and she and my mum and Melissa’s mum spent a whole morning (the day before) in the school kitchen making up bread so that we could offer Fairtrade toast or bacon rolls for our Fairtrade Breakfast.
So you can see already, that the whole Fairtrade thing is bringing our community together and that even if things don’t have the Fairtrade label, with a bit of ingenuity it’s possible to make sure that no one suffers on account of having breakfast. Well, of course the pigs suffer but that can’t be helped. They live decent lives until they go to the abattoir and that’s the best you can do for pigs.
So you probably want to know how successful our Fairtrade Breakfast was. It was very successful. We sold over £200 Fairtrade Breakfasts between 8 am and midday. And the local producers were happy because they started talking together about how to make DrumTumshie a Fairtrade Town and how they might be able to set up a community-based milk and egg and bacon operation – like a farmers market type thing but ‘to order’ for everyone in the local community. And even though I can’t put that on the Fairtrade assessment for our award, I think that’s actually one of the best results of the day.
We raised money to help people in other countries. And we raised awareness of the possibility of buying Fairtrade goods like tea and coffee and jam. And we got the community interested in Fairtrade and also in doing something for our community itself. If that’s not a success I don’t know what is.
And we had a visit from someone from Fairtrade as well. That was a surprise for me. And they gave us our certificate for being a Fairtrade school and me and Brian and Melissa and Odoyo went up to collect it. Jimmy Wong wasn’t there. He said Chinese people don’t eat breakfast, which is a load of nonsense. Brian said – ‘They do bear grudges, though, don’t they?’ And Miss Direction said we should cut the racial stereotyping and Brian said he wasn’t being racist, just pointing out that Jimmy Wong was being stupid without any need.
And when we went up to get our award, everyone in the Town Hall clapped and cheered and said that we were a great example to young people everywhere and we’d done something brilliant in DrumTumshie and should be very proud of ourselves. And we are. At least I am.
And I had to give a speech, because I was the Chairman of the Fairtrade Committee. And I thanked everyone like at an Oscar speech. I thanked mum and dad and all the other parents and the teachers and pupils at school and most of all Miss Direction. I even thanked Mr Smith and Mr Marker (you can’t be petty when it comes to giving thanks, now can you?) And I finished up by saying:
‘Thank you all for your support, but remember, this is only the beginning.’ Which it is.
Our Big Final Event was timed to fit in with the last day of Fairtrade Fortnight. We planned that, it wasn’t just a fluke like Brian’s winning header. The Theme for Fairtrade fortnight is called Sit Down for Breakfast. Stand up for Farmers. Which is great, because I’m the son of a farmer and I want to be a farmer when I leave school. And we all know that eating breakfast is important.
We had this Fairtrade Breakfast on a Saturday, in DrumTumshie Town Hall, so that everyone in the whole of DrumTumshie and TattyBogle could come and share it. And we included some things that are not really Fairtrade but should be. Like milk and bacon. We sourced them locally. And paid a fair price direct to the producer. We didn’t just hop into the supermarket for them. No, we put in the effort. It wasn’t that hard actually because Melissa’s aunt and uncle are pig farmers and Brian’s mum’s brother-in-law is one of the last dairy farmers in the North East of Scotland. And when we explained to them about the whole Fairtrade thing (including Farmers for Fairtrade) they said why the hell not and they agreed to supply us with the goods AND come and talk at the breakfast about being fair to farmers.
It was lucky really, because it meant that we could have bacon and eggs – it was easy to get free range eggs because just about everyone round here grows their own – for their Fairtrade breakfast. And you try and tell a farmer that his breakfast isn’t going to include bacon and eggs and see how far you get.
For the kids it’s great to have a breakfast that can be a chocolate bar or a biscuit, not many adults really want to eat (or want to admit to eating) chocolate for breakfast and it’s hard to convince anyone that that’s part of a healthy nutritious breakfast. We did get some Fairtrade muesli but it’s pretty expensive and since everyone who came to the Breakfast had to pay a fair price, most people preferred bacon and eggs.
What about toast? Well, you can buy Fairtrade jam and honey and even marmalade, but it’s quite expensive. Sourcing Fairtrade wheat is pretty hard to do, even though we live in the middle of a place where loads of people grow crops. Mostly though they grow barley round here. But Brian’s mum, who has got really into Fairtrade, came through for us and she managed to find some organic wheatflour, sourced direct from a small producer and she and my mum and Melissa’s mum spent a whole morning (the day before) in the school kitchen making up bread so that we could offer Fairtrade toast or bacon rolls for our Fairtrade Breakfast.
So you can see already, that the whole Fairtrade thing is bringing our community together and that even if things don’t have the Fairtrade label, with a bit of ingenuity it’s possible to make sure that no one suffers on account of having breakfast. Well, of course the pigs suffer but that can’t be helped. They live decent lives until they go to the abattoir and that’s the best you can do for pigs.
So you probably want to know how successful our Fairtrade Breakfast was. It was very successful. We sold over £200 Fairtrade Breakfasts between 8 am and midday. And the local producers were happy because they started talking together about how to make DrumTumshie a Fairtrade Town and how they might be able to set up a community-based milk and egg and bacon operation – like a farmers market type thing but ‘to order’ for everyone in the local community. And even though I can’t put that on the Fairtrade assessment for our award, I think that’s actually one of the best results of the day.
We raised money to help people in other countries. And we raised awareness of the possibility of buying Fairtrade goods like tea and coffee and jam. And we got the community interested in Fairtrade and also in doing something for our community itself. If that’s not a success I don’t know what is.
And we had a visit from someone from Fairtrade as well. That was a surprise for me. And they gave us our certificate for being a Fairtrade school and me and Brian and Melissa and Odoyo went up to collect it. Jimmy Wong wasn’t there. He said Chinese people don’t eat breakfast, which is a load of nonsense. Brian said – ‘They do bear grudges, though, don’t they?’ And Miss Direction said we should cut the racial stereotyping and Brian said he wasn’t being racist, just pointing out that Jimmy Wong was being stupid without any need.
And when we went up to get our award, everyone in the Town Hall clapped and cheered and said that we were a great example to young people everywhere and we’d done something brilliant in DrumTumshie and should be very proud of ourselves. And we are. At least I am.
And I had to give a speech, because I was the Chairman of the Fairtrade Committee. And I thanked everyone like at an Oscar speech. I thanked mum and dad and all the other parents and the teachers and pupils at school and most of all Miss Direction. I even thanked Mr Smith and Mr Marker (you can’t be petty when it comes to giving thanks, now can you?) And I finished up by saying:
‘Thank you all for your support, but remember, this is only the beginning.’ Which it is.
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 Scottish literary cultural scene in August 2012, when he appeared at the inaugural Edinburgh eBook Festival, Jack now attends DrumTumshie Academy.
During his brief but eventful literary career so far, Jack has been a blogger, providing an insightful commentary on rural life and Scots culture; a short story writer; and most recently a political commentator through his McSerial contributions to the McStorytellers website.
The Complete TattyBogle, Jack's first “real book” published by McStorytellers in 2015, brings together in a handy compendium all of his musings, commentaries and stories to date.
During his brief but eventful literary career so far, Jack has been a blogger, providing an insightful commentary on rural life and Scots culture; a short story writer; and most recently a political commentator through his McSerial contributions to the McStorytellers website.
The Complete TattyBogle, Jack's first “real book” published by McStorytellers in 2015, brings together in a handy compendium all of his musings, commentaries and stories to date.