The Story of a Boy and his Drum

This is a story about a boy, a wish, a drum, lots of other people and a good reason..

Once Upon a Time...there was a little boy called Timmy.

Little Timmy wished that he had like many others walked out of school and marched in protest against the Big Bad War Wolves to stop them huffing and puffing and blowing Iraqi houses down.

Little Timmy wanted the opportunity to make a stand and try to make a difference. Instead of protesting when it suited him, like when he had nothing better to be doing, he wanted to be in a position where he had to make more of an effort to be heard maybe to prove his worth or show how seriously he took the issue... or maybe... he just wanted a day off school.

Zor the Christmas Fairy knew Little Timmy's greatest wish and told him about a protest march against the Big Bad War Wolves who were also part-time Mean Money Monsters who liked to keep all the money in the world for themselves and not share it with all the little Munchkins. This meant the poor Munchkins got very sick and died. Maybe the Mean Money Monsters forgot that they were once Munchkins too.

Timmy remembered marching on his ancestor's land in Edinburgh to Make Poverty History and this gave him a warm feeling inside. He heard from Zor that this march however would be on a school day. He jumped for joy. Then he heard that the protest would involve drumming for trade justice along Whitehall. He jumped, once more for joy and mentally checked the whereabouts of his little Spanish drum.

Little Timmy was happy in the knowledge that his wish was about to come true, when a terrible thing happened. He was devastated. He had his opportunity but his hopes were about to be dashed. On the day of the protest he found out that he was not at school but on work experience at the Seriously Splendid Salvation Army THQ.

He had a dilemma...it was not just walking out of school but out of work experience at the Seriously Splendid Salvation Army THQ.

So what did he do? u might ask.

How strong was the lure of the open road...and the sound of drums in unison along the cobblestone of Whitehall...and the hypnotic chants of the crowds with rhyming abilities to convert any message into a crowd-pleasing, hand-clapping, shout-out-at-the-top-of-ur-voice, lung emptying song...(not a good song necessarily but a song none-the-less)...and the speeches with their rabble-rousing or sleep inducing qualities (dependent on the state of the speaker and listener) and the bizarre costumes at Mad Banker's Tea parties or Pants to Poverty wearers...and celebrity's like Ronan Keating...

Ronan convinced him...the next step was to convince his work-experience boss at the Seriously Splendid Salvation Army THQ the Great Graeme. Such was the awe in which Little Timmy held the Great Graeme, that he couldn't bring himself to approach him like the great Wizard of Oz himself in the Emerald City (the SSA THQ was in fact in Ruby City).

It was getting nearer and nearer to the day of reckoning. Zor, the Christmas Fairy kept getting text messages from Little Timmy, varying from 'I haven't said anything yet' to 'I kinda brought it up' to 'I'm scared'. Zor tried to reply without trying to turn him either way, this was Little Timmy's quest and he had find the answers himself, and overcome his fear. Although Zor had considered a back up strategy of remarking that Rosa Parks had probably been scared too and probably had more reason to be.

Zor finally got a text, from Little Timmy saying that not only were the powers that be ok with him going on the march, the Great Graeme and his friend Kind Karl, would come too. Result! Zor, the Christmas Fairy did a little dance, something akin to Ballet that a hippo on ice might attempt - once and never again.

So that is how Little Timmy, the Great Graeme, his friend Kind Karl, Zor the Christmas Fairy and her friend the Ever Extra-nice Emma ended up drumming their way past Downing Street to tell the Big Bad War Wolves and part-time Mean Money Monsters to share with the Munchkins and not be so mean with their money matters.

We don't know how the other people ended up there, whether they had similar dilemmas or whether some just happened to be walking along, just out for a stroll or on their way to pick up a sandwich from the corner shop and got caught up in it, found they were handed a placard and were afraid to hand it back in case it might seem rude.

Whatever the reason lots of people with...

• all kinds of drums in hands, on straps, in shopping trollies
• coconut shells
• biscuit tins, lunch boxes & spoons
• bodhrans, cymbals and tambourines
• pots and pans, lids and wooden spoons
• whistles and even a cow bell

...seemed to have found themselves making a bit of a commotion down in Whitehall, to try to hi-light Trade Justice issues in the campaign to Make Poverty History...

...as u do.

Little Timmy was just one of them.

(You can be one of them too...help make the Munchkins wishes come true like Little Timmy's did...and u can be part of the happy ending)

Find out more of what Little Timmy did here and what it was all about here.