Jack MacRoary's Guide to the General Election:
Episodes One & Two
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: The Bard of DrumTumshie kicks off his latest McSerial with a double header.
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Episode One – My mum’s on TV
This is the first episode of my new series. You probably read the last one, which was my retrospective guide to the Independence Referendum and if you did, I hope you enjoyed it. I’ll try and make this one as good, but I can’t say I’m that excited about the whole General Election thing. If we’d had Independence we wouldn’t have to be here now paying attention to this, we’d be busy building our better future and working on Social Justice. Now we seem to have to spend all our time arguing about a load of nonsense and nothing getting done till we find out who is going to run the next Wastemonster Government. And really, I don’t care. I can’t get interested in what’s happening down there. It’s like the News on TV, most of it is about England and they call it Britain, but until you get to Reporting Scotland it’s not about anything that matters. They talk about education and the health service and those kind of things as if they are about us too, but these are the devolved things and our systems are all different. It’s just that we pay the money to the Wastemonster and then they give us some back and then we have to try and make our systems work with only the money they give us. It’s like fighting with one hand tied behind our backs. But we tied our hands. Or the majority of us did. So now George Osborne’s budget is our pocket money and we have to make the most of it. Which isn’t much.
If you’re smart you’ll have worked out that I don’t write this on the very day it is posted. I know that this first episode comes out on April 1st, but it’s no joke I can tell you. And we all know that a week is a long time in politics and especially the last month before the General Election when there’s so much going on that no one can keep up with it. And no one really knows what will happen at the General Election so you can’t expect me to know. I’ll just tell you about the things that happen. This time it’s not a ‘retrospective’ because it’s happening right now and that means more pressure for me to hand my work in to Mr McStoryteller on time, so you’ll have to forgive me if I miss out something important.
All I can do is tell it how I see it. And it’s a busy time for us here, on the farm and at school and with the General Election on top of it all. And trying to keep mum happy. That’s always a priority for us these days. A mum is for life after all, not just for Mother’s Day. But woe betide you if you do forget her on Mother’s Day. Unless you’re my dad and it’s Nanny Alzheimer. She wouldn’t mind because she can’t remember anyway. But my dad did remember his mum on mother’s day. We went to visit her and she was the one who didn’t remember. She thought I was my dad and kept calling my dad Mr Proctor. No one knows a Mr Proctor. But the good thing is it means that she doesn’t remember about Uncle Tam. The rest of us do. Especially mum. Which was why we wanted to make her Mother’s Day special this year. So we let her go and spend it with her own mum while we went to dad’s mum. And then we took them both out to High Tea at DrumTumshie’s poshest hotel. (I had scampi and chips and scones and toast.) Mum and Grandma had a good time but it wasn’t the same as having Uncle Tam back. It couldn’t be.
A lot of things have changed since Uncle Tam died. You remember I told you about how my dad bought my mum The Dream Shall Never Die. Well, since then she’s got empowered. She has found a purpose ‘beyond the home’. Which means I have to be responsible. Which means I have to get the tea sometimes when she’s out. Last weekend was the start of it. Mum went to the SNP Spring Conference in Glasgow. You’ll remember that we watched in on television in autumn, but this time mum went in a coach-load with the DrumTumshie branch of the SNP. Before September there was about twenty of them, but there’s more than two hundred now, and there was enough of them wanting to go to hire a bus to go there and back.
I’m not sure how happy dad was at mum going off to Glasgow again. The last time, remember we all went together, to Nicola Sturgeon’s tour. And we had a good time. Now she was going on her own, leaving us behind. In the old days they would have had an argument over it, but arguments over the dinner table are a thing of the past in the MacRoary household since… well, you know. We have a new way of being, and being kind to mum is one of our central principles which we try to stick to. I did promise Nicola Sturgeon after all, and I’m not like Gordon Judas Brown, I intend to stick to my promise. So when mum announced at the dinner table the night after Mother’s Day that she was going to the Spring Conference, dad just said ‘Jeannie, if that’s what you want to do… go for it.’
‘But what about you?’ she asked.
‘We can manage,’ he said. He looked at me.
‘Of course we can,’ I said. ‘I’m doing cooking this term so I can cook tea. Don’t worry.’
‘At this rate you’ll be signing up for catering college,’ mum said.
‘I don’t think so, mum,’ I said. ‘I want to be a farmer like dad.’
‘I know,’ she said, ‘but wouldn’t you like to be a celebrity chef?’
I thought about it. ‘No, mum,’ I said, ‘farming’s good enough for me.’
We thought that would be the end of the matter. But it wasn’t. Because mum sprang another surprise on us.
‘Wullie,’ she said to my dad, because that’s his name and lately my parents have taken to using each other’s names when they particularly want to make sure they know that the other one is being reasonable.
‘Wullie, can you mind Brian while we go to Glasgow?’
Dad nearly choked on his chips on that one.
‘Sandra wants to come to the Conference with me,’ said mum.
I was happy, not just because it looked like Brian was going to come and stay with us, but because I think Sandra might be my mum’s new best friend, and after the way mum was treated by Ms Mammakaski, her old best friend, she could do with a new one. One who wants an independent Scotland.
‘What about Calum?’ dad asked.
‘He’s driving the bus,’ mum said.
Calum is Brian’s dad. He’s a bus driver.
Dad looked a bit put out and just said, ‘It’s a bit of a responsibility, Jeannie.’
Mum looked at him and said, ‘No more so than John when he was younger.’
Because John is now what might be called a paragon of virtue. At least in my mum’s eyes. And he’s out of my dad’s hair too, because he’s at college most of the time and when he’s home he has actually learned some things that are useful and can help dad rather than cause him grief. They call it modern farming methods. Though sometimes dad says that the old ways are best.
‘I’ll take responsibility for Brian,’ I said. ‘He’s my best friend after all.’
‘Fine,’ mum said, ‘but no chips for tea.’
So the deal was done. Mum was to go off to Glasgow and we were to stay at home with Brian and I was going to look after Brian and cook the food for all of us. I didn’t know why mum didn’t want me to cook chips for Brian because I know he likes them. But dad just said ‘It’s the Brian effect,’ and, ‘Humour your mum.’ And that was that.
It was quite an exciting day. Sandra dropped Brian off really early and she and mum went off to Glasgow at what my dad calls ‘sparrow’s fart’. My dad is always up before ‘sparrow’s fart’ because he has beasts to tend to and they don’t have watches, but they need to be fed early. Especially this time of year when it’s nearly calving.
But that wasn’t the exciting bit. The exciting bit was we saw my mum on Television! We did. Because Brian had got up so early, and he doesn’t usually do that because his dad’s a bus driver not a farmer, we had our dinner quite early too and then Brian wanted to help dad. So we helped dad for an hour but then dad said he thought we’d helped him more than enough and perhaps we should go inside and watch TV.
Dad never says that on a weekend. In fact I don’t think he’s ever told me to go and watch TV in my life. I told him that and he tapped his nose and said, ‘That’s the Brian effect.’ And then he said, ‘Why don’t you see if you can watch the SNP conference on the television?’ I was waiting for him to say, ‘It’s what your Uncle Tam would have wanted,’ but he didn’t, he said, ‘See if you can spot your mum.’ And I’d never thought of that.
And Brian really wanted to see his mum on television, so we both sat down to watch it. We had nachos and pop because it was a special event (and anyway, no one could stop me taking food from the cupboard because I was in charge) and because I have to be honest, some of it was a bit boring. That’s not the fault of the SNP, by the way. It’s the broadcasters.
Last time, when we were watching it on television, we got to see everything, but this time they were only going to show the ‘keynote speech’ by Nicola Sturgeon and the rest was going back and forth to the studio and talking to people who were there and Brian didn’t like all that because he knew his mum wasn’t in the studio, and because the ‘analyst’ man who was is really boring and we think he’s a NO-er anyway. So it felt like they were trying to bring down the whole event. Which isn’t fair. But that’s politics. Like life, it generally isn’t fair. But that’s what Independence was about. Changing things till they are fair.
Then the exciting thing happened. Nicola Sturgeon got up to speak. And she was great. Even Brian shut up to listen to her, and it wasn’t just because she was wearing red shoes and Brian really likes red shoes – he was wearing his red wellies – even though it was in the house because when dad suggested he might take them off when he went indoors Brian got a bit what they call ‘agitated’ at school and when he gets ‘agitated’ it’s best to let him do what he wants. Or divert him. I did both. I let him keep on his red wellies and I fed him nachos and pop. It worked.
Nicola Sturgeon told everyone that she was going to abolish the House of Lords – did you know they get paid £300 a day for just going there and doing nothing, and they wanted to stop 16 and 17 year olds getting the vote? And since no one voted for them that’s pretty cheap. Dad popped in at that moment and I could see him looking at Brian’s red wellies and I said, ‘Dad, did you know that they get paid £300 a day…’
And that diverted him. ‘I’m lucky to clear £300 a week,’ he said. Because my dad is not a farmer who owns a farm but a tenant farmer and as he tells me all the time ‘the sums don’t add up’ for him. It’s a shame I’m not good at maths or I could help him add up the sums. But I can’t.
And Nicola Sturgeon told everyone what we should do – be humble and work hard – and reach out to anyone who would work for a progressive country with social justice at the heart but said she was going to do anything she could to make us stronger for Scotland and that’s why SNP’s are going to Wastemonster. To make sure that they don’t get one over on us and also so that, since they want us to be part of the UK, we’ll help ALL the UK to be a better place. Dad says if we do that for a wee while they’ll be desperate to give us Independence.
And the cameras looked at Nicola’s red shoes. And Brian cheered. And then they looked at the crowd. And I said, ‘Brian, that’s your mum!’ And he cheered again. And there she was AND next to her was MY mum.
‘Dad,’ I shouted, because he’d gone for a cup of tea, ‘dad, mum’s on TV.’
And he came in and just then the camera went back on her again and she was clapping and smiling and it was great to see.
And I think dad got something in his eye because he brushed his eyes with the back of his hand, even though it was dirty, and I said, ‘Dad, are you all right?’ And he said, ‘Isn’t it great to see your mum smile again.’
It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t give it a question mark. It was a statement.
‘It was worth letting her go, dad, wasn’t it?’ I said.
And Nicola Sturgeon was talking about empowerment, especially of women, and I realised at that moment that my mum was ‘empowered’. I didn’t know what the consequences of that would be.
‘I didn’t let her go,’ dad said. ‘I’m not the boss of her. She’s her own woman, your mum.’
‘But we look after her, dad, don’t we?’ I said.
‘We all look after each other,’ my dad said. And he brushed his eyes again and then got up and said, ‘I’ve to look at the cows.’
‘That’s okay, dad,’ I said, ‘me and Brian will stay and watch the rest of the Conference and then we’ll look after each other till tea time.’
And that’s what we did.
But that wasn’t the end of the excitement. You might have been wondering where John has been all this while. Well, he came back an hour before tea time and guess what, he wasn’t alone. He was with a girl. And her name is Heather.
I asked Heather if she liked chips and she said she did. And I said that I was sorry but we couldn’t have chips because mum was worried about the ‘Brian effect’. And then Heather said she would make chips, in fact she and John would make our tea. So me and Brian could go out and play some more. It was an offer that was too good to refuse. And you can’t be rude to visitors, I know, you have to let them do what they want. Like letting Brian wear his wellies in the house and Heather cook our tea.
And John was like someone quite different from my brother and helped Heather and when we all sat down to our tea dad said it was like something out of the Waltons. And Heather even persuaded Brian to take off his red wellies and leave them outside the door – but only as long as Bisum the dog watched over them – because Brian was worried that someone might steal them. But I told him that Bisum was a great guard dog and no one would steal his boots. I was waiting for John to say something about the smell being enough to put off a thief, but he didn’t – and that was when dad said it was like the Waltons.
So we had our tea with Heather and mum missed out on John bringing his first proper girlfriend back for tea. But she had enough excitement of her own, what with the trip to the Conference and being on television. It was late at night when they got back, and Heather had gone home and John had come back and Sandra dropped my mum off and picked up Brian and his wellies (which never got stolen). And we told them we’d seen them on Television along with Nicola Sturgeon and my dad kissed my mum and said, ‘I’m so proud of you, Jeannie.’ And my mum kissed me and said, ‘I’m so proud of you, Jack.’ And I said, ‘Heather cooked chips, mum.’ And mum said, ‘Who is Heather?’ And John went as red as Brian’s wellies when dad said, ‘She’s John’s girlfriend’ and John said, ‘She’s just a friend, mum.’ And that was the end of that day. And you might think there wasn’t enough talk about politics in it, but like Brian says, ‘The politics is in the porridge.’ Which just means that the real politics happens in people’s homes, not in the Wastemonster or the House of Lords. Sometimes Brian is really smart. Even Mr Marker didn’t understand his comment when he first said it. But I did. And I think he’s right. In English they taught us that ‘the poetry is in the pity’ but in Scotland I believe ‘the politics is in the porridge’.
Episode Two – Keep the noise down!
I didn’t think I was going to have to do two episodes again the first time, so you might think I’m cheating when I say I want to tell you about my class project. But then, you might prefer this because it’s more about politics and less about porridge (or chips). I have to try and appeal to a broad range of readers, and I don’t expect any of you will like all that I’m writing about, but I’m doing my best to tell it as I see it. I can’t do more than that.
We’ve been doing this class project all term in Modern Studies, because Mr Marker is trying to keep us interested in British Politics. I think it might be his way of trying to keep the dream alive. Except our dream isn’t to be part of Britain. But even though we can’t vote, he’s trying to keep the porridge stirred so that when we’re ready, we’ll be ready. And that means being interested in the General Election. He came up with this idea that we should do a ‘comparative analysis’ of the Parliaments. Which meant that we had to watch Prime Minister’s Question Time and First Minister’s Question Time and talk about them. So I thought I would do some recycling or maybe it’s up-cycling of my homework for this episode. I hope you don’t mind. So here goes. My Modern Studies Project, 2015.
First we watched Prime Minister’s Question Time. It is on the Television every Wednesday from 12 noon till 12.30. We don’t have Modern Studies on a Wednesday but one day Miss Roamer the Geography Teacher was ‘stood down’ and we got to watch it in our Geography Class. They can change Geography and History and Modern Studies around because it’s a faculty together and the teachers can just do what they like as long as Mr MacArthur the History Teacher, who is the head of Department, says it’s okay. And it was.
The first thing to say about Prime Minister’s Question Time is I’ve never seen such bad behaviour from so many grown-ups all in the same place. They have these really nice seats, nicer than the best cinema seats to sit on. Benches, like you get on Top Gear or in really old smart cars. That’s because of Parliamentary Privilege, I suppose. This is what they have in Parliament. Privilege. But that’s no excuse for the kind of behaviour. If we shouted out like that in any class we’d be in trouble. Even in Religious Studies with Mrs Lovall we’d be in trouble and she can’t keep order for toffee. I think she believes that God will provide. But he doesn’t help her much with discipline. My friend Brian says, ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ Then he laughs, because he doesn’t believe in God. Nor do I, really. I mean, who would design a world like this – and if they did, even if they made a mistake – why would they leave it to go to pot the way my granny (not Nanny Alzheimer) says it has? Either he’s all powerful or not. And if so, he should have made it work better. And if not, he shouldn’t have given up and conned us that it was to do with our free will. It’s not my fault the world’s a mess. These are the sort of things Mrs Lovall doesn’t really like us to say in Religious Studies.
But back to Modern Studies. It was difficult to follow what was going on at Prime Minister’s Question Time because all they were doing was shouting all the time. There was one guy who kept shouting ‘order’ and saying that people ‘would be heard’ but he didn’t seem to convince all the others who just kept on shouting all the same. I couldn’t believe these people are being paid so much just for sitting making rude noises and yelling. I think I should suggest to my brother John that he should stand for parliament, but even he’s better behaved than they were. And anyway, he seems to be happy at college now. No wonder my Uncle Tam had no time for the place. No wonder he called it Wastemonster.
Brian the Brain asked Mr Marker why they were all shouting and no one listening. Mr Marker just told him to ‘shhh’ and pay attention. Or maybe he was telling the people on TV to do that and didn’t hear Brian. It seemed a bit unfair either way.
When you could hear a word in edgeways it seemed they were just arguing about debating on television. They couldn’t agree on when they would take the opportunity before the General Election to go on Television and shout at each other. Or how many of them would shout at how many others of them. They seemed oblivious to the fact that, right then, they were on television, shouting at each other. I hope they don’t go on television to debate or we’ll have to watch that too and I’ve had enough of that shouty stuff.
Then they started arguing about Alex Salmond. They kept talking about him as the leader of the SNP, which is ridiculous because we all know he gave that up and that Nicola Sturgeon is now the leader. Haven’t they caught up yet? But certainly they seemed to be very upset about any chance of Alex Salmond and the SNP being part of the Wastemonster after the election. Which seemed a bit rich to me, since they were the ones who had said we were all Better Together and that they wanted us to stay in the UK and even flew the Saltire over Downing Street. They don’t seem to want us there now.
Once they’d had a good shout for about twenty minutes they actually started asking some questions. But they were all pretty stupid questions. A person stood up and said, ‘Does the Prime Minister agree that…’ and then the Prime Minister stood up and said, more or less, ‘Yes, I do’ and sat down or said, ‘That’s why we don’t want the SNP in parliament.’
I thought that most of our classes in school were a waste of time but watching Prime Minister’s Question Time really opened my eyes to how stupid things can be. Our teachers keep much better order (apart from Mrs Lovall, of course) and we are all much better behaved, even Brian when he’s having what his bodyguard minder lady calls a ‘meltdown’. We would be ashamed to behave like they all did, especially on television. I don ‘t know how they get away with it.
And the one thing this first part of my analysis really taught me was that I don’t want to be governed by a bunch of people who sit around shouting at each other and all the time someone is shouting ‘order, order’ and everyone ignores them. They all just laugh and jeer at each other and it’s not at all nice, and I can’t see how anything gets done. Mr Marker says the real work is done in the Committees and we could watch them, and I said if the work is done in the Committees why do they have Question Time when they don’t even want to listen to the answers? And he said it was tradition. Which is just stupid. I think if something is tradition and stupid it should be changed. Why hang on to the past? I wouldn’t let Mr MacArthur the history teacher hear me say that, of course.
The next day, on Thursday when it was our Modern Studies class we watched First Minister’s Question Time. This wasn’t on television so we had to watch it online on Scottish Parliament TV – who knew they had such a thing? I thought we’d do Geography during Modern Studies since we’d done Modern Studies instead of Geography but it seems the deal didn’t work that way, perhaps because Miss Roamer isn’t a full-time teacher and so she doesn’t come in on a Thursday. That’s because of council cut-backs, I think. Or it might be that Miss Roamer has better things to do with her time than be a teacher full-time. I don’t know. It’s best not to know too much about your teachers sometimes. Best to keep a barrier. You don’t want teachers to be your friends after all. I know that because Mr Marker keeps trying to be my friend on account of Uncle Tam. He keeps saying, ‘Your Uncle Tam would be proud of you.’ He even wrote it in my jotter after one of my homeworks. It made mum cry when she read it. And got me into a lot of trouble. But that’s another story.
So you see, the point I’m making is that I want my Uncle Tam to be proud of me, and I’m happy when my mum or dad say he would be – because they know him and are related to him – and me. But when a teacher says it… well, let’s just say there are many ways to be inappropriate in my book and that was stepping over the line. I don’t even think Mr Marker knew my Uncle Tam, though he might have met him down the pub once long ago. Mr Marker also said, ‘He was an inspiration to us all in DrumTumshie’ and maybe he was, but maybe it’s just the way people jump on the bandwagon when someone dies. Suddenly they are the best person in the world when before they died they used to really rub a lot of folk up the wrong way – which Uncle Tam did do. Imagine if Jim Murphy died, they’d probably say nice things about him too. So it doesn’t really mean anything, does it? The only thing that means something is what you, the immediate family, remember and that’s all that matters to me about Uncle Tam.
Anyway, The First Minister’s Question Time is on between twelve and twelve thirty on Thursday – but we didn’t get to see it till about eight minutes past because of ‘streaming’ issues. Which means Mr Marker doesn’t know how to work the technology. So we came in after the beginning.
The first thing to say is that they were all a lot better behaved and less shouty than the people at the Wastemonster. It all seemed better organised and there is a lot more space for the people to sit even if they do have desks that look a bit like school desks. But after all, they are supposed to be working, not sitting on the Top Gear couch shouting along with Jeremy Clarkson. Or like he used to because now there’s no Top Gear because… well, I’d best not go into that or I might get into trouble. You probably know what happened anyway. And Mr Marker says it’s not relevant to my ‘comparative analysis’.
In the Scottish Parliament, what happens is, someone gets their name called out to ask a question of the First Minister. That’s Nicola Sturgeon now, remember – in case anyone reading this is as stupid as those in Wastemonster who seem to think that Alex Salmond is either the leader of the SNP or the devil incarnate! (I looked out for Alex Salmond but I couldn’t see him in the chamber – that’s what they call the Parliament room – maybe he had the day off to go to the dentist or something) and then her name is called out to give the answer. And she does. Most of the questions were really short and she answered really quickly, and I wondered what the point of that was. But then I discovered it’s like ping pong. Because the person is called to ask the question and maybe they ask a question about something simple and Nicola Sturgeon gives a simple answer. And then the person is called again – and they ask another question which is much longer and has nothing to do with the question they just asked. All those questions seemed to be about the NHS and were long and boring and I really couldn’t follow them and they seemed not really to be questions but more trying to make Nicola Sturgeon look silly or make a mistake or they were complaining about her. And each time, she had to come up with a good answer and not look silly or get it wrong. And she did it every time without ever shouting which is something they could learn to do in the Wastemonster.
And then, at the end of the First Minister’s Question Time they said it was going to be an open debate and anyone leaving should go quietly and they all rushed out – except for about 10 people which I thought was a bit bad – maybe they were trying to get to the lunch queue first but it felt wrong to just walk out and Mr Marker said we could watch it because we’d missed the beginning of question time. And the debate was about Fair Trade – and do you know what – it was actually interesting. All those questions about the NHS had made me want to stick pins in my eyes but now a man was talking about Fair Trade footballs and chocolate and farmers. And I like football and chocolate (who doesn’t?) and I want to be a farmer so I thought this would be right up my street. And I got so interested in the debate that I didn’t even notice when the bell went and the rest of the class left and I stayed till the end and I missed my lunch.
And that was when I realised that I was interested in politics. Not the shouty things in Parliament or the ping pong points scoring type thing but the stuff which is actually interesting about real people’s lives. And that made me more annoyed that all the MSP’s had left the chamber for their lunches instead of staying for the really interesting debate. I don’t think that’s right. It’s disrespectful in my opinion.
And I learned a lot about FairTrade and I made a promise that I was going to make DrumTumshie Academy a FairTrade School in honour of my Uncle Tam. I’m going to do something that will really make him proud. And make for the bad reputation my brother John gave the MacRoarys at DrumTumshie Academy into the bargain. That’s my plan anyway. But I haven’t told anyone but you yet, so don’t go spreading it around.
Now, to come to the conclusion of my homework: I suppose there is good and bad about the Parliaments but I didn’t see anything good about the Wastemonster Parliament and I think that the Scottish Parliament should sort out their lunchtimes and make it a rule that everyone has to stay for the whole debate. You can’t just go in and out of classes at school. And we don’t even get paid. So my suggestion for how to make the Parliaments better is that they should all be taught some manners and organise things a bit better so that they are all there listening to the important things.
And the other thing is it really taught me that I don’t want to be governed by Wastemonster, and so I hope that Nicola Sturgeon’s plan works out. And if Alex Salmond gets down to Wastemonster I hope he’s going to teach them all some manners.
Oh, and I meant to tell you more about The Dream Shall Never Die. You remember? The ebook my dad got my mum and she let me read? I’m writing a book report on it. For English. Can you see how much homework they give us this year? Well, you’ll have to wait till next week for that. I’m sorry, because I know that a week is a long time in politics, but since it’s about to be Easter maybe it won’t seem so long. And I’m not doing my homework till I’ve eaten all my Easter eggs. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that you have to prioritise in life. So I’ll have it ready for you next week. See you then.
Swearwords: None.
Description: The Bard of DrumTumshie kicks off his latest McSerial with a double header.
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Episode One – My mum’s on TV
This is the first episode of my new series. You probably read the last one, which was my retrospective guide to the Independence Referendum and if you did, I hope you enjoyed it. I’ll try and make this one as good, but I can’t say I’m that excited about the whole General Election thing. If we’d had Independence we wouldn’t have to be here now paying attention to this, we’d be busy building our better future and working on Social Justice. Now we seem to have to spend all our time arguing about a load of nonsense and nothing getting done till we find out who is going to run the next Wastemonster Government. And really, I don’t care. I can’t get interested in what’s happening down there. It’s like the News on TV, most of it is about England and they call it Britain, but until you get to Reporting Scotland it’s not about anything that matters. They talk about education and the health service and those kind of things as if they are about us too, but these are the devolved things and our systems are all different. It’s just that we pay the money to the Wastemonster and then they give us some back and then we have to try and make our systems work with only the money they give us. It’s like fighting with one hand tied behind our backs. But we tied our hands. Or the majority of us did. So now George Osborne’s budget is our pocket money and we have to make the most of it. Which isn’t much.
If you’re smart you’ll have worked out that I don’t write this on the very day it is posted. I know that this first episode comes out on April 1st, but it’s no joke I can tell you. And we all know that a week is a long time in politics and especially the last month before the General Election when there’s so much going on that no one can keep up with it. And no one really knows what will happen at the General Election so you can’t expect me to know. I’ll just tell you about the things that happen. This time it’s not a ‘retrospective’ because it’s happening right now and that means more pressure for me to hand my work in to Mr McStoryteller on time, so you’ll have to forgive me if I miss out something important.
All I can do is tell it how I see it. And it’s a busy time for us here, on the farm and at school and with the General Election on top of it all. And trying to keep mum happy. That’s always a priority for us these days. A mum is for life after all, not just for Mother’s Day. But woe betide you if you do forget her on Mother’s Day. Unless you’re my dad and it’s Nanny Alzheimer. She wouldn’t mind because she can’t remember anyway. But my dad did remember his mum on mother’s day. We went to visit her and she was the one who didn’t remember. She thought I was my dad and kept calling my dad Mr Proctor. No one knows a Mr Proctor. But the good thing is it means that she doesn’t remember about Uncle Tam. The rest of us do. Especially mum. Which was why we wanted to make her Mother’s Day special this year. So we let her go and spend it with her own mum while we went to dad’s mum. And then we took them both out to High Tea at DrumTumshie’s poshest hotel. (I had scampi and chips and scones and toast.) Mum and Grandma had a good time but it wasn’t the same as having Uncle Tam back. It couldn’t be.
A lot of things have changed since Uncle Tam died. You remember I told you about how my dad bought my mum The Dream Shall Never Die. Well, since then she’s got empowered. She has found a purpose ‘beyond the home’. Which means I have to be responsible. Which means I have to get the tea sometimes when she’s out. Last weekend was the start of it. Mum went to the SNP Spring Conference in Glasgow. You’ll remember that we watched in on television in autumn, but this time mum went in a coach-load with the DrumTumshie branch of the SNP. Before September there was about twenty of them, but there’s more than two hundred now, and there was enough of them wanting to go to hire a bus to go there and back.
I’m not sure how happy dad was at mum going off to Glasgow again. The last time, remember we all went together, to Nicola Sturgeon’s tour. And we had a good time. Now she was going on her own, leaving us behind. In the old days they would have had an argument over it, but arguments over the dinner table are a thing of the past in the MacRoary household since… well, you know. We have a new way of being, and being kind to mum is one of our central principles which we try to stick to. I did promise Nicola Sturgeon after all, and I’m not like Gordon Judas Brown, I intend to stick to my promise. So when mum announced at the dinner table the night after Mother’s Day that she was going to the Spring Conference, dad just said ‘Jeannie, if that’s what you want to do… go for it.’
‘But what about you?’ she asked.
‘We can manage,’ he said. He looked at me.
‘Of course we can,’ I said. ‘I’m doing cooking this term so I can cook tea. Don’t worry.’
‘At this rate you’ll be signing up for catering college,’ mum said.
‘I don’t think so, mum,’ I said. ‘I want to be a farmer like dad.’
‘I know,’ she said, ‘but wouldn’t you like to be a celebrity chef?’
I thought about it. ‘No, mum,’ I said, ‘farming’s good enough for me.’
We thought that would be the end of the matter. But it wasn’t. Because mum sprang another surprise on us.
‘Wullie,’ she said to my dad, because that’s his name and lately my parents have taken to using each other’s names when they particularly want to make sure they know that the other one is being reasonable.
‘Wullie, can you mind Brian while we go to Glasgow?’
Dad nearly choked on his chips on that one.
‘Sandra wants to come to the Conference with me,’ said mum.
I was happy, not just because it looked like Brian was going to come and stay with us, but because I think Sandra might be my mum’s new best friend, and after the way mum was treated by Ms Mammakaski, her old best friend, she could do with a new one. One who wants an independent Scotland.
‘What about Calum?’ dad asked.
‘He’s driving the bus,’ mum said.
Calum is Brian’s dad. He’s a bus driver.
Dad looked a bit put out and just said, ‘It’s a bit of a responsibility, Jeannie.’
Mum looked at him and said, ‘No more so than John when he was younger.’
Because John is now what might be called a paragon of virtue. At least in my mum’s eyes. And he’s out of my dad’s hair too, because he’s at college most of the time and when he’s home he has actually learned some things that are useful and can help dad rather than cause him grief. They call it modern farming methods. Though sometimes dad says that the old ways are best.
‘I’ll take responsibility for Brian,’ I said. ‘He’s my best friend after all.’
‘Fine,’ mum said, ‘but no chips for tea.’
So the deal was done. Mum was to go off to Glasgow and we were to stay at home with Brian and I was going to look after Brian and cook the food for all of us. I didn’t know why mum didn’t want me to cook chips for Brian because I know he likes them. But dad just said ‘It’s the Brian effect,’ and, ‘Humour your mum.’ And that was that.
It was quite an exciting day. Sandra dropped Brian off really early and she and mum went off to Glasgow at what my dad calls ‘sparrow’s fart’. My dad is always up before ‘sparrow’s fart’ because he has beasts to tend to and they don’t have watches, but they need to be fed early. Especially this time of year when it’s nearly calving.
But that wasn’t the exciting bit. The exciting bit was we saw my mum on Television! We did. Because Brian had got up so early, and he doesn’t usually do that because his dad’s a bus driver not a farmer, we had our dinner quite early too and then Brian wanted to help dad. So we helped dad for an hour but then dad said he thought we’d helped him more than enough and perhaps we should go inside and watch TV.
Dad never says that on a weekend. In fact I don’t think he’s ever told me to go and watch TV in my life. I told him that and he tapped his nose and said, ‘That’s the Brian effect.’ And then he said, ‘Why don’t you see if you can watch the SNP conference on the television?’ I was waiting for him to say, ‘It’s what your Uncle Tam would have wanted,’ but he didn’t, he said, ‘See if you can spot your mum.’ And I’d never thought of that.
And Brian really wanted to see his mum on television, so we both sat down to watch it. We had nachos and pop because it was a special event (and anyway, no one could stop me taking food from the cupboard because I was in charge) and because I have to be honest, some of it was a bit boring. That’s not the fault of the SNP, by the way. It’s the broadcasters.
Last time, when we were watching it on television, we got to see everything, but this time they were only going to show the ‘keynote speech’ by Nicola Sturgeon and the rest was going back and forth to the studio and talking to people who were there and Brian didn’t like all that because he knew his mum wasn’t in the studio, and because the ‘analyst’ man who was is really boring and we think he’s a NO-er anyway. So it felt like they were trying to bring down the whole event. Which isn’t fair. But that’s politics. Like life, it generally isn’t fair. But that’s what Independence was about. Changing things till they are fair.
Then the exciting thing happened. Nicola Sturgeon got up to speak. And she was great. Even Brian shut up to listen to her, and it wasn’t just because she was wearing red shoes and Brian really likes red shoes – he was wearing his red wellies – even though it was in the house because when dad suggested he might take them off when he went indoors Brian got a bit what they call ‘agitated’ at school and when he gets ‘agitated’ it’s best to let him do what he wants. Or divert him. I did both. I let him keep on his red wellies and I fed him nachos and pop. It worked.
Nicola Sturgeon told everyone that she was going to abolish the House of Lords – did you know they get paid £300 a day for just going there and doing nothing, and they wanted to stop 16 and 17 year olds getting the vote? And since no one voted for them that’s pretty cheap. Dad popped in at that moment and I could see him looking at Brian’s red wellies and I said, ‘Dad, did you know that they get paid £300 a day…’
And that diverted him. ‘I’m lucky to clear £300 a week,’ he said. Because my dad is not a farmer who owns a farm but a tenant farmer and as he tells me all the time ‘the sums don’t add up’ for him. It’s a shame I’m not good at maths or I could help him add up the sums. But I can’t.
And Nicola Sturgeon told everyone what we should do – be humble and work hard – and reach out to anyone who would work for a progressive country with social justice at the heart but said she was going to do anything she could to make us stronger for Scotland and that’s why SNP’s are going to Wastemonster. To make sure that they don’t get one over on us and also so that, since they want us to be part of the UK, we’ll help ALL the UK to be a better place. Dad says if we do that for a wee while they’ll be desperate to give us Independence.
And the cameras looked at Nicola’s red shoes. And Brian cheered. And then they looked at the crowd. And I said, ‘Brian, that’s your mum!’ And he cheered again. And there she was AND next to her was MY mum.
‘Dad,’ I shouted, because he’d gone for a cup of tea, ‘dad, mum’s on TV.’
And he came in and just then the camera went back on her again and she was clapping and smiling and it was great to see.
And I think dad got something in his eye because he brushed his eyes with the back of his hand, even though it was dirty, and I said, ‘Dad, are you all right?’ And he said, ‘Isn’t it great to see your mum smile again.’
It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t give it a question mark. It was a statement.
‘It was worth letting her go, dad, wasn’t it?’ I said.
And Nicola Sturgeon was talking about empowerment, especially of women, and I realised at that moment that my mum was ‘empowered’. I didn’t know what the consequences of that would be.
‘I didn’t let her go,’ dad said. ‘I’m not the boss of her. She’s her own woman, your mum.’
‘But we look after her, dad, don’t we?’ I said.
‘We all look after each other,’ my dad said. And he brushed his eyes again and then got up and said, ‘I’ve to look at the cows.’
‘That’s okay, dad,’ I said, ‘me and Brian will stay and watch the rest of the Conference and then we’ll look after each other till tea time.’
And that’s what we did.
But that wasn’t the end of the excitement. You might have been wondering where John has been all this while. Well, he came back an hour before tea time and guess what, he wasn’t alone. He was with a girl. And her name is Heather.
I asked Heather if she liked chips and she said she did. And I said that I was sorry but we couldn’t have chips because mum was worried about the ‘Brian effect’. And then Heather said she would make chips, in fact she and John would make our tea. So me and Brian could go out and play some more. It was an offer that was too good to refuse. And you can’t be rude to visitors, I know, you have to let them do what they want. Like letting Brian wear his wellies in the house and Heather cook our tea.
And John was like someone quite different from my brother and helped Heather and when we all sat down to our tea dad said it was like something out of the Waltons. And Heather even persuaded Brian to take off his red wellies and leave them outside the door – but only as long as Bisum the dog watched over them – because Brian was worried that someone might steal them. But I told him that Bisum was a great guard dog and no one would steal his boots. I was waiting for John to say something about the smell being enough to put off a thief, but he didn’t – and that was when dad said it was like the Waltons.
So we had our tea with Heather and mum missed out on John bringing his first proper girlfriend back for tea. But she had enough excitement of her own, what with the trip to the Conference and being on television. It was late at night when they got back, and Heather had gone home and John had come back and Sandra dropped my mum off and picked up Brian and his wellies (which never got stolen). And we told them we’d seen them on Television along with Nicola Sturgeon and my dad kissed my mum and said, ‘I’m so proud of you, Jeannie.’ And my mum kissed me and said, ‘I’m so proud of you, Jack.’ And I said, ‘Heather cooked chips, mum.’ And mum said, ‘Who is Heather?’ And John went as red as Brian’s wellies when dad said, ‘She’s John’s girlfriend’ and John said, ‘She’s just a friend, mum.’ And that was the end of that day. And you might think there wasn’t enough talk about politics in it, but like Brian says, ‘The politics is in the porridge.’ Which just means that the real politics happens in people’s homes, not in the Wastemonster or the House of Lords. Sometimes Brian is really smart. Even Mr Marker didn’t understand his comment when he first said it. But I did. And I think he’s right. In English they taught us that ‘the poetry is in the pity’ but in Scotland I believe ‘the politics is in the porridge’.
Episode Two – Keep the noise down!
I didn’t think I was going to have to do two episodes again the first time, so you might think I’m cheating when I say I want to tell you about my class project. But then, you might prefer this because it’s more about politics and less about porridge (or chips). I have to try and appeal to a broad range of readers, and I don’t expect any of you will like all that I’m writing about, but I’m doing my best to tell it as I see it. I can’t do more than that.
We’ve been doing this class project all term in Modern Studies, because Mr Marker is trying to keep us interested in British Politics. I think it might be his way of trying to keep the dream alive. Except our dream isn’t to be part of Britain. But even though we can’t vote, he’s trying to keep the porridge stirred so that when we’re ready, we’ll be ready. And that means being interested in the General Election. He came up with this idea that we should do a ‘comparative analysis’ of the Parliaments. Which meant that we had to watch Prime Minister’s Question Time and First Minister’s Question Time and talk about them. So I thought I would do some recycling or maybe it’s up-cycling of my homework for this episode. I hope you don’t mind. So here goes. My Modern Studies Project, 2015.
First we watched Prime Minister’s Question Time. It is on the Television every Wednesday from 12 noon till 12.30. We don’t have Modern Studies on a Wednesday but one day Miss Roamer the Geography Teacher was ‘stood down’ and we got to watch it in our Geography Class. They can change Geography and History and Modern Studies around because it’s a faculty together and the teachers can just do what they like as long as Mr MacArthur the History Teacher, who is the head of Department, says it’s okay. And it was.
The first thing to say about Prime Minister’s Question Time is I’ve never seen such bad behaviour from so many grown-ups all in the same place. They have these really nice seats, nicer than the best cinema seats to sit on. Benches, like you get on Top Gear or in really old smart cars. That’s because of Parliamentary Privilege, I suppose. This is what they have in Parliament. Privilege. But that’s no excuse for the kind of behaviour. If we shouted out like that in any class we’d be in trouble. Even in Religious Studies with Mrs Lovall we’d be in trouble and she can’t keep order for toffee. I think she believes that God will provide. But he doesn’t help her much with discipline. My friend Brian says, ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ Then he laughs, because he doesn’t believe in God. Nor do I, really. I mean, who would design a world like this – and if they did, even if they made a mistake – why would they leave it to go to pot the way my granny (not Nanny Alzheimer) says it has? Either he’s all powerful or not. And if so, he should have made it work better. And if not, he shouldn’t have given up and conned us that it was to do with our free will. It’s not my fault the world’s a mess. These are the sort of things Mrs Lovall doesn’t really like us to say in Religious Studies.
But back to Modern Studies. It was difficult to follow what was going on at Prime Minister’s Question Time because all they were doing was shouting all the time. There was one guy who kept shouting ‘order’ and saying that people ‘would be heard’ but he didn’t seem to convince all the others who just kept on shouting all the same. I couldn’t believe these people are being paid so much just for sitting making rude noises and yelling. I think I should suggest to my brother John that he should stand for parliament, but even he’s better behaved than they were. And anyway, he seems to be happy at college now. No wonder my Uncle Tam had no time for the place. No wonder he called it Wastemonster.
Brian the Brain asked Mr Marker why they were all shouting and no one listening. Mr Marker just told him to ‘shhh’ and pay attention. Or maybe he was telling the people on TV to do that and didn’t hear Brian. It seemed a bit unfair either way.
When you could hear a word in edgeways it seemed they were just arguing about debating on television. They couldn’t agree on when they would take the opportunity before the General Election to go on Television and shout at each other. Or how many of them would shout at how many others of them. They seemed oblivious to the fact that, right then, they were on television, shouting at each other. I hope they don’t go on television to debate or we’ll have to watch that too and I’ve had enough of that shouty stuff.
Then they started arguing about Alex Salmond. They kept talking about him as the leader of the SNP, which is ridiculous because we all know he gave that up and that Nicola Sturgeon is now the leader. Haven’t they caught up yet? But certainly they seemed to be very upset about any chance of Alex Salmond and the SNP being part of the Wastemonster after the election. Which seemed a bit rich to me, since they were the ones who had said we were all Better Together and that they wanted us to stay in the UK and even flew the Saltire over Downing Street. They don’t seem to want us there now.
Once they’d had a good shout for about twenty minutes they actually started asking some questions. But they were all pretty stupid questions. A person stood up and said, ‘Does the Prime Minister agree that…’ and then the Prime Minister stood up and said, more or less, ‘Yes, I do’ and sat down or said, ‘That’s why we don’t want the SNP in parliament.’
I thought that most of our classes in school were a waste of time but watching Prime Minister’s Question Time really opened my eyes to how stupid things can be. Our teachers keep much better order (apart from Mrs Lovall, of course) and we are all much better behaved, even Brian when he’s having what his bodyguard minder lady calls a ‘meltdown’. We would be ashamed to behave like they all did, especially on television. I don ‘t know how they get away with it.
And the one thing this first part of my analysis really taught me was that I don’t want to be governed by a bunch of people who sit around shouting at each other and all the time someone is shouting ‘order, order’ and everyone ignores them. They all just laugh and jeer at each other and it’s not at all nice, and I can’t see how anything gets done. Mr Marker says the real work is done in the Committees and we could watch them, and I said if the work is done in the Committees why do they have Question Time when they don’t even want to listen to the answers? And he said it was tradition. Which is just stupid. I think if something is tradition and stupid it should be changed. Why hang on to the past? I wouldn’t let Mr MacArthur the history teacher hear me say that, of course.
The next day, on Thursday when it was our Modern Studies class we watched First Minister’s Question Time. This wasn’t on television so we had to watch it online on Scottish Parliament TV – who knew they had such a thing? I thought we’d do Geography during Modern Studies since we’d done Modern Studies instead of Geography but it seems the deal didn’t work that way, perhaps because Miss Roamer isn’t a full-time teacher and so she doesn’t come in on a Thursday. That’s because of council cut-backs, I think. Or it might be that Miss Roamer has better things to do with her time than be a teacher full-time. I don’t know. It’s best not to know too much about your teachers sometimes. Best to keep a barrier. You don’t want teachers to be your friends after all. I know that because Mr Marker keeps trying to be my friend on account of Uncle Tam. He keeps saying, ‘Your Uncle Tam would be proud of you.’ He even wrote it in my jotter after one of my homeworks. It made mum cry when she read it. And got me into a lot of trouble. But that’s another story.
So you see, the point I’m making is that I want my Uncle Tam to be proud of me, and I’m happy when my mum or dad say he would be – because they know him and are related to him – and me. But when a teacher says it… well, let’s just say there are many ways to be inappropriate in my book and that was stepping over the line. I don’t even think Mr Marker knew my Uncle Tam, though he might have met him down the pub once long ago. Mr Marker also said, ‘He was an inspiration to us all in DrumTumshie’ and maybe he was, but maybe it’s just the way people jump on the bandwagon when someone dies. Suddenly they are the best person in the world when before they died they used to really rub a lot of folk up the wrong way – which Uncle Tam did do. Imagine if Jim Murphy died, they’d probably say nice things about him too. So it doesn’t really mean anything, does it? The only thing that means something is what you, the immediate family, remember and that’s all that matters to me about Uncle Tam.
Anyway, The First Minister’s Question Time is on between twelve and twelve thirty on Thursday – but we didn’t get to see it till about eight minutes past because of ‘streaming’ issues. Which means Mr Marker doesn’t know how to work the technology. So we came in after the beginning.
The first thing to say is that they were all a lot better behaved and less shouty than the people at the Wastemonster. It all seemed better organised and there is a lot more space for the people to sit even if they do have desks that look a bit like school desks. But after all, they are supposed to be working, not sitting on the Top Gear couch shouting along with Jeremy Clarkson. Or like he used to because now there’s no Top Gear because… well, I’d best not go into that or I might get into trouble. You probably know what happened anyway. And Mr Marker says it’s not relevant to my ‘comparative analysis’.
In the Scottish Parliament, what happens is, someone gets their name called out to ask a question of the First Minister. That’s Nicola Sturgeon now, remember – in case anyone reading this is as stupid as those in Wastemonster who seem to think that Alex Salmond is either the leader of the SNP or the devil incarnate! (I looked out for Alex Salmond but I couldn’t see him in the chamber – that’s what they call the Parliament room – maybe he had the day off to go to the dentist or something) and then her name is called out to give the answer. And she does. Most of the questions were really short and she answered really quickly, and I wondered what the point of that was. But then I discovered it’s like ping pong. Because the person is called to ask the question and maybe they ask a question about something simple and Nicola Sturgeon gives a simple answer. And then the person is called again – and they ask another question which is much longer and has nothing to do with the question they just asked. All those questions seemed to be about the NHS and were long and boring and I really couldn’t follow them and they seemed not really to be questions but more trying to make Nicola Sturgeon look silly or make a mistake or they were complaining about her. And each time, she had to come up with a good answer and not look silly or get it wrong. And she did it every time without ever shouting which is something they could learn to do in the Wastemonster.
And then, at the end of the First Minister’s Question Time they said it was going to be an open debate and anyone leaving should go quietly and they all rushed out – except for about 10 people which I thought was a bit bad – maybe they were trying to get to the lunch queue first but it felt wrong to just walk out and Mr Marker said we could watch it because we’d missed the beginning of question time. And the debate was about Fair Trade – and do you know what – it was actually interesting. All those questions about the NHS had made me want to stick pins in my eyes but now a man was talking about Fair Trade footballs and chocolate and farmers. And I like football and chocolate (who doesn’t?) and I want to be a farmer so I thought this would be right up my street. And I got so interested in the debate that I didn’t even notice when the bell went and the rest of the class left and I stayed till the end and I missed my lunch.
And that was when I realised that I was interested in politics. Not the shouty things in Parliament or the ping pong points scoring type thing but the stuff which is actually interesting about real people’s lives. And that made me more annoyed that all the MSP’s had left the chamber for their lunches instead of staying for the really interesting debate. I don’t think that’s right. It’s disrespectful in my opinion.
And I learned a lot about FairTrade and I made a promise that I was going to make DrumTumshie Academy a FairTrade School in honour of my Uncle Tam. I’m going to do something that will really make him proud. And make for the bad reputation my brother John gave the MacRoarys at DrumTumshie Academy into the bargain. That’s my plan anyway. But I haven’t told anyone but you yet, so don’t go spreading it around.
Now, to come to the conclusion of my homework: I suppose there is good and bad about the Parliaments but I didn’t see anything good about the Wastemonster Parliament and I think that the Scottish Parliament should sort out their lunchtimes and make it a rule that everyone has to stay for the whole debate. You can’t just go in and out of classes at school. And we don’t even get paid. So my suggestion for how to make the Parliaments better is that they should all be taught some manners and organise things a bit better so that they are all there listening to the important things.
And the other thing is it really taught me that I don’t want to be governed by Wastemonster, and so I hope that Nicola Sturgeon’s plan works out. And if Alex Salmond gets down to Wastemonster I hope he’s going to teach them all some manners.
Oh, and I meant to tell you more about The Dream Shall Never Die. You remember? The ebook my dad got my mum and she let me read? I’m writing a book report on it. For English. Can you see how much homework they give us this year? Well, you’ll have to wait till next week for that. I’m sorry, because I know that a week is a long time in politics, but since it’s about to be Easter maybe it won’t seem so long. And I’m not doing my homework till I’ve eaten all my Easter eggs. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that you have to prioritise in life. So I’ll have it ready for you next week. See you then.
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.