Jack MacRoary's Fairtrade Adventure
Episode Two
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: March 1st – Marching On.
Swearwords: None.
Description: March 1st – Marching On.
Now that the confusion over the extra day in February is over, we’re into March. We can march on if you like. You see, I’m getting quite keen on this playing with words thing. Mum says I need to use it sparingly. Dad says, ‘Aye, not like John uses aftershave.’ If you’ve read my earlier books you’ll notice that nothing much has changed at the farm. (If you haven’t read my earlier books, you really should. You can get them all as one handy book called The Complete Tattybogle, for ebook and paperback at very reasonable prices.)
I want to take you back a wee bit in time. Back to after I’d finished Jack’s Guide to the General Election and when we came back to school after the summer holidays. I’m nearly fifteen years old now and I’m in Year 10 which means I’m taking my National 4’s this year. School has probably changed a lot since you were there if you are as old as my parents who had O Grades and Highers and don’t know what all this Nationals and Curriculum for Excellence is all about. Dad calls it Curriculum for Excrement, but I think that’s a bit unfair.
Anyway, now that I’m nearly 15 I decided it was time to ‘walk the walk’ as Uncle Tam would say and the ‘journey’ I wanted to take was to make the world a fairer place. Even if Scotland can’t be independent just yet I can’t just forget about the rest of the world. And that’s where Fairtrade comes into the picture.
I want to do something for other people in other countries. Though I think we should have some kind of Fairtrade in our own country. Especially when you look at the Dairy Industry. How can it be that farmers are expected to sell milk at lower than the cost of production? I know people want cheap milk to drink, but how do you expect producers to survive when they have to sell at less than cost price? That is a question not just for International Fairtrade but one that we should realise affects us all.
Our Economics teacher Mr Smith tells us that it’s all down to the Free Market. Brian is in my Economics class. Mr Smith said it was a timetabling mistake and is sure that Brian shouldn’t be there, but the Home Economics teacher Mrs Mixit swears blind that Brian wrote Economics not Home Economics on his choice form and so he is in our class ‘whether we like it or not,’ as Mr Smith says. I do like it, because I find that Brian brings an element of interest to our classes. I’d say fun but I know you won’t think it’s right that we have fun at school – ‘we’re not here to have fun, we’re here to learn,’ as Mr Smith says. He says a lot of dull things like that. And that’s why we call him Adam. Not to his face, of course. I haven’t read the original Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. I tried, but I couldn’t get beyond the first couple of pages. It’s a free ebook, and it proves that some books aren’t worth it even if they are free. Free isn’t always good. And it isn’t always fair. Anyway, the original Mr Smith was supposedly the daddy of the free market economy, which some people think is something to be proud of. I don’t. He was also just as boring as our Mr Smith and they could well be related. But that’s getting away from my point.
We are supposed to be proud of Adam Smith because he was part of the Scottish Enlightenment. I’m not so sure about this ‘Enlightenment’ thing. Lots of things they believe in don’t seem that enlightened to me. Like the Free Market. It’s not an easy thing to explain the free market (at least not to Brian because I tried – and Brian is my benchmark. If I can’t make Brian understand something, it’s probably not worth trying to understand).
But it’s important to know about the Free Market if you are interested in Fairtrade because while everyone says how great the Free Market is, I think it’s more like the expression ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch.’ I mean, there is such a thing as the Free Market but it certainly isn’t free for everyone. But I should stop now and tomorrow I’ll tell you what I think about the Free Market.
I want to take you back a wee bit in time. Back to after I’d finished Jack’s Guide to the General Election and when we came back to school after the summer holidays. I’m nearly fifteen years old now and I’m in Year 10 which means I’m taking my National 4’s this year. School has probably changed a lot since you were there if you are as old as my parents who had O Grades and Highers and don’t know what all this Nationals and Curriculum for Excellence is all about. Dad calls it Curriculum for Excrement, but I think that’s a bit unfair.
Anyway, now that I’m nearly 15 I decided it was time to ‘walk the walk’ as Uncle Tam would say and the ‘journey’ I wanted to take was to make the world a fairer place. Even if Scotland can’t be independent just yet I can’t just forget about the rest of the world. And that’s where Fairtrade comes into the picture.
I want to do something for other people in other countries. Though I think we should have some kind of Fairtrade in our own country. Especially when you look at the Dairy Industry. How can it be that farmers are expected to sell milk at lower than the cost of production? I know people want cheap milk to drink, but how do you expect producers to survive when they have to sell at less than cost price? That is a question not just for International Fairtrade but one that we should realise affects us all.
Our Economics teacher Mr Smith tells us that it’s all down to the Free Market. Brian is in my Economics class. Mr Smith said it was a timetabling mistake and is sure that Brian shouldn’t be there, but the Home Economics teacher Mrs Mixit swears blind that Brian wrote Economics not Home Economics on his choice form and so he is in our class ‘whether we like it or not,’ as Mr Smith says. I do like it, because I find that Brian brings an element of interest to our classes. I’d say fun but I know you won’t think it’s right that we have fun at school – ‘we’re not here to have fun, we’re here to learn,’ as Mr Smith says. He says a lot of dull things like that. And that’s why we call him Adam. Not to his face, of course. I haven’t read the original Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. I tried, but I couldn’t get beyond the first couple of pages. It’s a free ebook, and it proves that some books aren’t worth it even if they are free. Free isn’t always good. And it isn’t always fair. Anyway, the original Mr Smith was supposedly the daddy of the free market economy, which some people think is something to be proud of. I don’t. He was also just as boring as our Mr Smith and they could well be related. But that’s getting away from my point.
We are supposed to be proud of Adam Smith because he was part of the Scottish Enlightenment. I’m not so sure about this ‘Enlightenment’ thing. Lots of things they believe in don’t seem that enlightened to me. Like the Free Market. It’s not an easy thing to explain the free market (at least not to Brian because I tried – and Brian is my benchmark. If I can’t make Brian understand something, it’s probably not worth trying to understand).
But it’s important to know about the Free Market if you are interested in Fairtrade because while everyone says how great the Free Market is, I think it’s more like the expression ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch.’ I mean, there is such a thing as the Free Market but it certainly isn’t free for everyone. But I should stop now and tomorrow I’ll tell you what I think about the Free Market.
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.