Jack MacRoary's Guide to the Independence Referendum:
Episode Six
Genre: Humour
Swearwords: None.
Description: Promises, promises and I meet the First Minister and he tells me we’re going to win.
_____________________________________________________________________
So last time you know that Mum was defriended by Clarys Mammakaski and John didn’t get sent to prison for chucking an egg at Jim Murphy (he did hit him, by the way, in case you think it’s because he missed that they never did anything). I think it was because John looks like quite a wee boy even though he was nearly eighteen and Jim Murphy said ‘he’s just a minor’ when they asked if he wanted to press charges. Well, it was the local policeman who asked – which, believe it or not is Charles Grierson – Mr Mammakaski – and I think he was feeling bad about his wife bullying my mum – certainly Uncle Tam had a word with him and it was agreed that ‘all charges would be dropped’. And I wonder how could Jim Murphy think John was a minor when he’s a Young Farmer. There’s no mines round here, though everyone in DrumTumshie is worried that we might get Fracking instead of Independence. It was all very confusing as you can see. But the long and the short of it is: John MacRoary threw an egg at Jim Murphy and got away with it. And he gave the idea to the guy in Kirkcaldy who got into real trouble because he wasn’t a minor and didn’t have as good a reason as John did to throw an egg in the first place. Or so the judge must have thought.
And I don’t know if it’s related but something else happened which has Kirkcaldy in it too. And that was Gordon ‘Judas’ Brown (as Uncle Tam calls him) and his big promise. (Which he never kept, by the way, in case you don’t know.)
It was two weeks before the Independence Referendum and everything was getting really exciting because we all started believing that we were going to win. We were going to be Independent. Even the polls told us. And all sorts of things were happening. A load of Labour Party people from England came up to Glasgow and a man chased them playing the Death March from Star Wars, which was even funnier than John hitting Jim Murphy with an egg (I have to say now that loads of people call Jim Murphy ‘spud’ but I won’t do that because, as my dad would say, it’s an insult to a tatty!) but then things got super serious and they sent in, as Uncle Tam says, ‘the big guns’.
The biggest gun they had was not Ms Mammakaski – though you might have thought it because she was pretty effective in upsetting my mum, and I’ve not forgiven her even if mum has. MacRoary men are like elephants. We never forget. And we never forgive. Like… well… like I don’t know what but we don’t forgive a grievance – I know… like True Scots!
No, the biggest gun they had was Gordon Judas Brown. He used to be Prime Minister after Tony Blair (not a hard act to follow, Uncle Tam says) and before that he was the Chancellor which means he kept hold of the purse strings, which means he has the cheque book and all the money for Great Britain and he’s the man who gave Scotland her pocket money. So I suppose that’s why people look up to him. Because everyone doesn’t want to upset the person who gives them their pocket money, now do they? So that even though mum says countries aren’t like families, I think I respectfully disagree with her on that point. Sorry mum. But I know she will respect my opinion because she’s like that.
Anyway, just after the polls said we were going to win, they sent up Gordon Brown to do a couple of big speeches on Television and he promised us all sorts of things. And made everyone else in the Wastemonster agree that it was called ‘the vow’ which meant it was a solemn promise and they’d really do it. But of course they didn’t mean a bit of it and they never did.
But enough people got fooled into thinking that the promise was true and that we could have the best of all worlds. Which is daft because how could we possibly have the best of all worlds? We have one world. And we just want the best for our country within that one world. We don’t want loads of worlds. Uncle Tam says that’s because the English have an Imperialist nature whereas True Scots are community based.
Anyway, Gordon Brown, who is the MP for Kirkcaldy but won’t be after the General Election, because he’s not going to stand again, ‘because he knows he’ll get his arse kicked because of the vow’ – to quote Uncle Tam or ‘because he’s going to join with Murphy and try and take over Scottish Government’ to quote dad – he gave these big speeches telling everyone how much there was to be afraid of if we voted yes and if we voted no he’d promise that everything would be better.
Why did anyone believe him? I don’t know. I truly don’t understand that. It was obvious even to me that the promise wouldn’t work. Firstly, they said they’d get it all sorted by St Andrews Day and then by Burns Night. And nothing ever works that fast in politics I know. Because I do sometimes listen to Mr Marker. And even though a week is a long time in politics, as Uncle Tam said, ‘no legislation worth its salt could be passed in that time-frame.’
And anyway, someone told me that Gordon Judas Brown only said those things because he was paid a lot of money to do it. Uncle Tam says he was brought in as a late sub because that useless plonk Darling couldn’t organise a you know what in a brewery. I don’t know about that, I just know that his eyebrows were pretty alarming and he was very shouty on the television so that mum got really annoyed. Though I thought if he was that annoying no one would listen to him or vote for his side and maybe that is why they brought in Gordon Judas Brown.
Anyway, he gave the speech and it changed everything. And dark days fell over the land, as my religious studies teacher would say.
But you don’t want to hear about religion. You can’t be funny about it, especially not about Islam or you will be in real trouble. No. We want to talk about politics. Well, that’s what I’m not being paid to write about. Because I’m not being paid, in case you think I am. I’m not.
Sometimes I wonder if we have politics because you can’t be nasty about religion and people need to be nasty about something so that’s what politics is for. But I don’t know. What I do know is that I want to tell you about a very exciting day. Which came before the very dark day I will tell you about next week. Because we want to think about hope over fear, mum says. Even if fear won in the end. So I want to tell you about the best day of our lives in the MacRoary household. It was the day of the Independence Referendum. Because everyone else got to vote and I got to meet the First Minister, Alex Salmond. Me and Bisum the dog got our pictures taken with him. And Micro the pig. But not Dug the cat. He stayed home. Cats are like that, aren’t they? Not exactly team players.
On the day of the Referendum election, we were all up early. That’s not unusual of course because we are a farming family so you have to be up early. Well, dad has to be up early and mum doesn’t think it’s fair that we should be lounging in our pits while he’s working. Normally I don’t always agree with her, because I’m a growing boy and I need my sleep, but on this day – that day – September 18th 2014, I did agree with her. It was like Christmas for the excitement but without the presents. Or Santa.
So we were all up at 6am because mum and dad wanted to be the first in the polling station. Dad said he’d waited 300 years to vote and he wasn’t waiting a minute longer than absolutely necessary. I said, ‘Dad but you aren’t anything like 300 years old so how can you have waited that long?’ And he said, ‘You know what I mean, son.’ Which I didn’t really but maybe you can make sense of it. I think he was just being emotional because of Independence which is unlike my dad.
So. We all got ready to go to vote for 7am. Even John. After Gordon Judas Brown got my mum riled up, John came out clean and said of course he was voting Yes, he was a true Scot and more than that he was a true MacRoary and he was all for Independence. With bells on. I couldn’t vote but they wanted me to go and see what it was all about. Which I couldn’t really because I couldn’t go into the polling station. But I stood outside with Bisum the Dog and Micro the Pig and a big Saltire Flag, because that was me doing my bit. Mum wasn’t too happy about Micro the Pig coming but I pointed out that this was a big family day and so we should all go as a family. And if Dug the cat would have got in the car with Micro the Pig then he could have come too… but when he chose not to we had to respect his rights and leave him alone. John said he might throw an egg at him later, though. He suspected Dug of being ‘no’ inclined. I have to agree. That cat never does what anyone wants him to. He’s independent all right but he’s not a Yesser.
So there we were, my family inside the polling station and I’m standing outside the polling station holding Micro the Pig. I didn’t have to hold Bisum the dog because as a sheepdog she’s well trained enough to sit still when she has to. Just tell her ‘lie down’ and she will. Unless there are particularly annoying sheep looking at her when she finds it hard to obey the rules. But there were no sheep to be seen at the polling station (which was TattyBogle Primary School by the way and it was funny to be back there, especially since everyone else went in but I couldn’t!).
And then it happened. The big thing. I was standing there, minding my own business and all these cameras and things turned up. And started taking pictures of me and Micro and Bisum and the flag. And that’s not all. Then up came a load of cars and vans and they were playing ‘One great day’ loud out the windows and out came HIM. Mr Alex Salmond. Our First Minister and the man who had organised the whole Independence Referendum. He’s as close to God as a person could be in my mum’s opinion and I never thought I’d get that close to God. And he didn’t just walk past me. He stopped and he talked to me. He asked me what Micro was called and I told him. He asked me what Bisum was called and he said ‘and is she a cheeky wee..?’ And I said, ‘Yes but she’s quite well behaved too, and by the way we’re ALL for independence in the MacRoary household and my mum thinks you’re next to God and could you wait to speak to her when she comes out because she’s been cyberbullied because of Independence…’ and he didn’t just look over my head like most adults do when I go off on one. No. He stood there, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Of course.’
And the camera men wanted him to get his picture taken with Bisum and Micro and he got down to their level but Micro wasn’t having any of it, because John was just coming out of the polling station (I think she smelled him) and she slipped the lead and ran to him. I wasn’t holding that hard because I was a bit distracted by The First Minister. So Micro ran into the polling station, which probably wasn’t allowed but The First Minister got down close to me and Bisum and guess what. Bisum gave him a big lick. And he didn’t even mind.
And I whispered to him, because I didn’t think he’d want to say it out loud in front of all the camera people, I said ‘Are we going to win, do you think?’ and he looked me right in the eyes and said ‘I really think we are.’
And that’s what made the next day so sad for me. Because he didn’t promise me or anything, but he believed. And I believed. And we all believed. And that was a beautiful day. We held the future of Scotland in our hands. But we let go, like I let go of Micro. And all hell broke loose.
Micro and John were ‘escorted’ off the premises at TattyBogle Primary School – I think the Janny remembers John and his ‘escapades’ and thought this was another of them but it wasn’t. And then my mum and dad came out hand in hand which I’ve never even seen before and they were smiling like I’ve never seen them before and they were so happy. And then they saw The First Minister and I said ‘That’s my parents’ and he went right up to my mum and he kissed her on the cheek and my dad didn’t even get angry and then the most amazing thing in the world happened. Which was that my dad even hugged Alex Salmond, The First Minister. My dad doesn’t hug. But he did on Thursday 18th September 2014. Because he believed we were going to be free. It was the best day in our family history ever. But you know what happened next. You’ll have to wait for next week because it’s too hard for me to write about in the same episode as our best ever day.
Swearwords: None.
Description: Promises, promises and I meet the First Minister and he tells me we’re going to win.
_____________________________________________________________________
So last time you know that Mum was defriended by Clarys Mammakaski and John didn’t get sent to prison for chucking an egg at Jim Murphy (he did hit him, by the way, in case you think it’s because he missed that they never did anything). I think it was because John looks like quite a wee boy even though he was nearly eighteen and Jim Murphy said ‘he’s just a minor’ when they asked if he wanted to press charges. Well, it was the local policeman who asked – which, believe it or not is Charles Grierson – Mr Mammakaski – and I think he was feeling bad about his wife bullying my mum – certainly Uncle Tam had a word with him and it was agreed that ‘all charges would be dropped’. And I wonder how could Jim Murphy think John was a minor when he’s a Young Farmer. There’s no mines round here, though everyone in DrumTumshie is worried that we might get Fracking instead of Independence. It was all very confusing as you can see. But the long and the short of it is: John MacRoary threw an egg at Jim Murphy and got away with it. And he gave the idea to the guy in Kirkcaldy who got into real trouble because he wasn’t a minor and didn’t have as good a reason as John did to throw an egg in the first place. Or so the judge must have thought.
And I don’t know if it’s related but something else happened which has Kirkcaldy in it too. And that was Gordon ‘Judas’ Brown (as Uncle Tam calls him) and his big promise. (Which he never kept, by the way, in case you don’t know.)
It was two weeks before the Independence Referendum and everything was getting really exciting because we all started believing that we were going to win. We were going to be Independent. Even the polls told us. And all sorts of things were happening. A load of Labour Party people from England came up to Glasgow and a man chased them playing the Death March from Star Wars, which was even funnier than John hitting Jim Murphy with an egg (I have to say now that loads of people call Jim Murphy ‘spud’ but I won’t do that because, as my dad would say, it’s an insult to a tatty!) but then things got super serious and they sent in, as Uncle Tam says, ‘the big guns’.
The biggest gun they had was not Ms Mammakaski – though you might have thought it because she was pretty effective in upsetting my mum, and I’ve not forgiven her even if mum has. MacRoary men are like elephants. We never forget. And we never forgive. Like… well… like I don’t know what but we don’t forgive a grievance – I know… like True Scots!
No, the biggest gun they had was Gordon Judas Brown. He used to be Prime Minister after Tony Blair (not a hard act to follow, Uncle Tam says) and before that he was the Chancellor which means he kept hold of the purse strings, which means he has the cheque book and all the money for Great Britain and he’s the man who gave Scotland her pocket money. So I suppose that’s why people look up to him. Because everyone doesn’t want to upset the person who gives them their pocket money, now do they? So that even though mum says countries aren’t like families, I think I respectfully disagree with her on that point. Sorry mum. But I know she will respect my opinion because she’s like that.
Anyway, just after the polls said we were going to win, they sent up Gordon Brown to do a couple of big speeches on Television and he promised us all sorts of things. And made everyone else in the Wastemonster agree that it was called ‘the vow’ which meant it was a solemn promise and they’d really do it. But of course they didn’t mean a bit of it and they never did.
But enough people got fooled into thinking that the promise was true and that we could have the best of all worlds. Which is daft because how could we possibly have the best of all worlds? We have one world. And we just want the best for our country within that one world. We don’t want loads of worlds. Uncle Tam says that’s because the English have an Imperialist nature whereas True Scots are community based.
Anyway, Gordon Brown, who is the MP for Kirkcaldy but won’t be after the General Election, because he’s not going to stand again, ‘because he knows he’ll get his arse kicked because of the vow’ – to quote Uncle Tam or ‘because he’s going to join with Murphy and try and take over Scottish Government’ to quote dad – he gave these big speeches telling everyone how much there was to be afraid of if we voted yes and if we voted no he’d promise that everything would be better.
Why did anyone believe him? I don’t know. I truly don’t understand that. It was obvious even to me that the promise wouldn’t work. Firstly, they said they’d get it all sorted by St Andrews Day and then by Burns Night. And nothing ever works that fast in politics I know. Because I do sometimes listen to Mr Marker. And even though a week is a long time in politics, as Uncle Tam said, ‘no legislation worth its salt could be passed in that time-frame.’
And anyway, someone told me that Gordon Judas Brown only said those things because he was paid a lot of money to do it. Uncle Tam says he was brought in as a late sub because that useless plonk Darling couldn’t organise a you know what in a brewery. I don’t know about that, I just know that his eyebrows were pretty alarming and he was very shouty on the television so that mum got really annoyed. Though I thought if he was that annoying no one would listen to him or vote for his side and maybe that is why they brought in Gordon Judas Brown.
Anyway, he gave the speech and it changed everything. And dark days fell over the land, as my religious studies teacher would say.
But you don’t want to hear about religion. You can’t be funny about it, especially not about Islam or you will be in real trouble. No. We want to talk about politics. Well, that’s what I’m not being paid to write about. Because I’m not being paid, in case you think I am. I’m not.
Sometimes I wonder if we have politics because you can’t be nasty about religion and people need to be nasty about something so that’s what politics is for. But I don’t know. What I do know is that I want to tell you about a very exciting day. Which came before the very dark day I will tell you about next week. Because we want to think about hope over fear, mum says. Even if fear won in the end. So I want to tell you about the best day of our lives in the MacRoary household. It was the day of the Independence Referendum. Because everyone else got to vote and I got to meet the First Minister, Alex Salmond. Me and Bisum the dog got our pictures taken with him. And Micro the pig. But not Dug the cat. He stayed home. Cats are like that, aren’t they? Not exactly team players.
On the day of the Referendum election, we were all up early. That’s not unusual of course because we are a farming family so you have to be up early. Well, dad has to be up early and mum doesn’t think it’s fair that we should be lounging in our pits while he’s working. Normally I don’t always agree with her, because I’m a growing boy and I need my sleep, but on this day – that day – September 18th 2014, I did agree with her. It was like Christmas for the excitement but without the presents. Or Santa.
So we were all up at 6am because mum and dad wanted to be the first in the polling station. Dad said he’d waited 300 years to vote and he wasn’t waiting a minute longer than absolutely necessary. I said, ‘Dad but you aren’t anything like 300 years old so how can you have waited that long?’ And he said, ‘You know what I mean, son.’ Which I didn’t really but maybe you can make sense of it. I think he was just being emotional because of Independence which is unlike my dad.
So. We all got ready to go to vote for 7am. Even John. After Gordon Judas Brown got my mum riled up, John came out clean and said of course he was voting Yes, he was a true Scot and more than that he was a true MacRoary and he was all for Independence. With bells on. I couldn’t vote but they wanted me to go and see what it was all about. Which I couldn’t really because I couldn’t go into the polling station. But I stood outside with Bisum the Dog and Micro the Pig and a big Saltire Flag, because that was me doing my bit. Mum wasn’t too happy about Micro the Pig coming but I pointed out that this was a big family day and so we should all go as a family. And if Dug the cat would have got in the car with Micro the Pig then he could have come too… but when he chose not to we had to respect his rights and leave him alone. John said he might throw an egg at him later, though. He suspected Dug of being ‘no’ inclined. I have to agree. That cat never does what anyone wants him to. He’s independent all right but he’s not a Yesser.
So there we were, my family inside the polling station and I’m standing outside the polling station holding Micro the Pig. I didn’t have to hold Bisum the dog because as a sheepdog she’s well trained enough to sit still when she has to. Just tell her ‘lie down’ and she will. Unless there are particularly annoying sheep looking at her when she finds it hard to obey the rules. But there were no sheep to be seen at the polling station (which was TattyBogle Primary School by the way and it was funny to be back there, especially since everyone else went in but I couldn’t!).
And then it happened. The big thing. I was standing there, minding my own business and all these cameras and things turned up. And started taking pictures of me and Micro and Bisum and the flag. And that’s not all. Then up came a load of cars and vans and they were playing ‘One great day’ loud out the windows and out came HIM. Mr Alex Salmond. Our First Minister and the man who had organised the whole Independence Referendum. He’s as close to God as a person could be in my mum’s opinion and I never thought I’d get that close to God. And he didn’t just walk past me. He stopped and he talked to me. He asked me what Micro was called and I told him. He asked me what Bisum was called and he said ‘and is she a cheeky wee..?’ And I said, ‘Yes but she’s quite well behaved too, and by the way we’re ALL for independence in the MacRoary household and my mum thinks you’re next to God and could you wait to speak to her when she comes out because she’s been cyberbullied because of Independence…’ and he didn’t just look over my head like most adults do when I go off on one. No. He stood there, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Of course.’
And the camera men wanted him to get his picture taken with Bisum and Micro and he got down to their level but Micro wasn’t having any of it, because John was just coming out of the polling station (I think she smelled him) and she slipped the lead and ran to him. I wasn’t holding that hard because I was a bit distracted by The First Minister. So Micro ran into the polling station, which probably wasn’t allowed but The First Minister got down close to me and Bisum and guess what. Bisum gave him a big lick. And he didn’t even mind.
And I whispered to him, because I didn’t think he’d want to say it out loud in front of all the camera people, I said ‘Are we going to win, do you think?’ and he looked me right in the eyes and said ‘I really think we are.’
And that’s what made the next day so sad for me. Because he didn’t promise me or anything, but he believed. And I believed. And we all believed. And that was a beautiful day. We held the future of Scotland in our hands. But we let go, like I let go of Micro. And all hell broke loose.
Micro and John were ‘escorted’ off the premises at TattyBogle Primary School – I think the Janny remembers John and his ‘escapades’ and thought this was another of them but it wasn’t. And then my mum and dad came out hand in hand which I’ve never even seen before and they were smiling like I’ve never seen them before and they were so happy. And then they saw The First Minister and I said ‘That’s my parents’ and he went right up to my mum and he kissed her on the cheek and my dad didn’t even get angry and then the most amazing thing in the world happened. Which was that my dad even hugged Alex Salmond, The First Minister. My dad doesn’t hug. But he did on Thursday 18th September 2014. Because he believed we were going to be free. It was the best day in our family history ever. But you know what happened next. You’ll have to wait for next week because it’s too hard for me to write about in the same episode as our best ever day.
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.