Daft Old Duffer wants our help. Ed
I’m thinking of writing a sort of modern-day fairy story, a bit of a fantasy thing. I have the bare framework of it laid out, but before going any further I thought I’d ask your opinion.
It concerns a rich young man, provisionally named Daffyd (because he is of Celtic blood) who, when our tale begins, is studying for a university degree.
His family fortunes are the result of a long line of astute and hard working businessmen and women, and he has been brought up in the same tradition of work for works sake.
It is his duty to further increase the family’s wealth and social standing and he has no intention of failing.
Which does not mean he will go out and actively seek employment, write carefully crafted letters to bosses or seek to impress at interviews.
That’s not the way things are done at his level.
Putting out the feelers
Instead, as he approaches his last years at Oxford discreet feelers will be put out along a well established network.
“Got a young lad coming on. Quite bright, good manners. Anything going?”
And in due course the bright lad will be approached by an uncle or a friend of some business acquaintance and asked if he had ever considered a career in – whatever – publishing or finance – merchant banking perhaps?
Never manufacturing of course. Never trade in any form. Nothing so vulgar.
Quite unable to decide – and well aware there’s no hurry – Daffyd takes a good degree in nothing too practical and waits patiently.
Ever considered politics?
And sure enough one day he is approached by a respected and distinguished uncle who is something in one of the major political parties and who asks him has he ever considered a career in politics?
Well he has he confesses. Not altogether too seriously perhaps. But he’s open to suggestions, certainly.
That’s good, he is assured. Youngsters such as he are at a premium. If he follows the correct line, takes the advice of his betters and generally keeps his nose clean he has the chance of a first class career.
He might even – (perhaps a deprecating chuckle here) – one day end up as Leader of the party and perhaps even Prime Minister of Britain. Provided he is willing to do as he is told, heed the advice of his elders and betters and forget some of his more University inspired ideals about equality and other such nonsense.
What next?
This is where I get a bit stuck. I would like to finish the tale with our hero indeed becoming Prime Minister just a few years later, and then going on perhaps to lead the country out of the worst financial crisis in its history.
But I’m afraid that might be just too implausible. Can a young man who life has thus far been effortlessly smooth, and who has never for one second had to consider the price of anything he wanted to buy; a young man who has never travelled anywhere or done anything much, has certainly never had to seek a job or get up in the dark to scrape his windscreen clear before negotiating icy roads to work; never so much as passed through a council run estate, managed a tight budget, or hired and fired and directed a workforce; can a young man like that actually know enough about anything to become so successful?
I must confess the more I think about it the more implausible it seems.
What do you think?
Image: Tom Edwards under CC BY 2.0
