Chapter 21

Rory

My mother went off for her weekend in Stirling on Friday afternoon, which left Rebecca and me alone in the house for the weekend. We had invited Marjory and Ken for dinner on Friday evening. Fortunately for them we were not doing the cooking as my mother had left a meal in the oven. All we had to do was remember to switch it on. She had also prepared potatoes and vegetables and left them in separate pans of water and again all we had to do was remember to switch them on. She had told us the temperatures and times so that we could hardly go wrong. In the afternoon we worked hard putting the finishing touches to our power point presentation for the meeting with the politicians on Saturday morning.

Kenny and Marjory arrived about five o clock in the afternoon so we downed tools and started the dinner preparations. Together we set the table for the meal and Marjory and Ken gave us a hand. At half past five I turned on the oven and as the meal was to take 45 minutes to cook, I suggested we adjourn to the lounge and poured everybody cokes. When we were seated, Kenny asked,

"Are you two going to be here all weekend on your own?"

"Yes," I told him. "We are always together, either I stay at Rebecca's place or we stay here with my mum. Since she is away we are babysitting the house."

I said with a laugh.

"Your folks must trust you to leave you together alone like this. My mum would have a hairy fit if I was to spend the night in a house alone with a girl." Kenny said.

We both looked over at Marjory with an unspoken question for she knew the nature of our relationship but she nodded her head signifying that she had said nothing to Kenny about this.

"Kenny," Rebecca said, "You are going to be spending a lot of time in our company and if you do that, I think you would begin to suspect something about the nature of our relationship, so before I say something about it, Can we trust you not to say anything to anyone else."

"Of course you can," Kenny replied, "but surely the same thing applies to Marjory."

"Yes it does," I chipped in. "But Marjory already knows what we are going to tell you. But she was sworn to secrecy also. We are pleased to see that she has not even told you. It's not a good thing, however, to have to keep secrets from one another if the relationship is going to be a long lasting one. I think because of that we have to let you in on the secret."

"You see Rory and I are lovers," Rebecca told him. "Our parents know about it because my parents found us in bed together. They took the line that you should not bother shutting the stable door if the horse had already bolted. So they have accepted the situation and took the enlightened view it was better to be done with their knowledge rather than us sneaking away to go on doing it behind their backs. But since I am not sixteen for a few weeks yet, and Rory won't be sixteen until early June, then we and they are breaking the law by letting this happen."

"So you see mate, why this has to be kept to as small a circle as possible." I told him.

"Yes I can see why that is the case," Kenny said with a smile. "You are two lucky people to have parents who took that view. A lot of parents would have separated you and tried to keep you apart."

"Yes we know that." I told him. "We are so glad that this is the case. It's partly to do with the fact that both sets of parents are happy that we are together as a couple and also to do with the fact they think that we are both mature enough to handle it."

"Anyway, now you know," Rebecca said. "And we don't have to worry about you finding out by accident. Now I am not encouraging you to follow our example, but if you get to that stage, then you know you have someone to talk to about it and also someone who might be able to find you a place where you can have some privacy."

"We will bear that in mind," Marjory said with a smile. "But we have both decided that we are not going to rush into that kind of relationship."

"We didn't intend to either," Rebecca said, "But we have spent so much time together, that over Christmas we got carried away and then were foolish enough to fall asleep with my bedroom door open so that our parents discovered it."

"Sometimes these things just happen. We are not the first and we will not be the last." I said.

After this the conversation fell on more general lines. Kenny had asked us what we were working on when they came in and we told him about our PowerPoint presentation for the meeting tomorrow. We then had to fill him in on the proposed loan company we were trying to start up within McFarlane Enterprises to help small businesses because the banks were not only being sticky about lending to them but also charging high interest rates when they did. He asked if we thought we would get a grant from the government to help with this and I told him that the chances had to be good as they were going as far as having a junior minister come to the meeting tomorrow.

We had switched on the oven some time back, and Rebecca reminded me it was time for the potatoes, so I went through and turned on the gas under them. When I came back I asked the other three to remind me that I needed to do the same for the vegetables in ten minutes time. When I had sat down again, Kenny turned to me,

"My dad is worried about his job," He told me. "Because of the credit crunch people are taking a bit longer between services. With private individuals this is not so bad, because they pay up before their car is released back to them. A lot of the business at the garage where my dad works though is servicing cars and vans for companies and they are taking longer to pay their bills. But the garage has to fork out for all the things needed for servicing and repairing their vehicles. They are also working to narrow margins to get the business in the first place. So it is very easy for cash flow problems to develop."

"Well if we get this up and running perhaps they could be a candidate for help from us," I responded. "In fact if you are interested Rebecca and I could talk to Ruth about having you on the committee. Then if we think they could possibly benefit from our help you could talk to your dad's boss about the scheme."

"If you thought I could bring anything to the committee I certainly would be interested in playing a part" Kenny said. "If you two are on it already, though, would they want another teenager in the ranks?"

I don't see why not, Rebecca told him. "It was a teenager who came up with the idea in the first place," Rebecca said.

And a very bright lad he was too." I told them as I went to check on our dinner.

That was greeted by a series of catcalls from the others

The meal turned out very well and we enjoyed our evening with them. By the time we left we were tired and ready for bed. Before going to sleep I asked Rebecca to remind me to talk to Ruth about including Kenny on our committee for the Small Business Credit Union. She suggested that we should also talk to Marjory about her career plans. If she was not intending to enter the family law firm she might also be a possible candidate to recruit for McFarlane enterprises.

Despite having the house to ourselves we were soon fast asleep.

Rebecca

At the meeting next day most of the initial talking was done by my mum as she laid out the plan and told them McFarlane enterprises had put two million pounds to initiate the scheme. She went on to say that another local solicitors business, Brown, Brown and McKay had offered to put up another five hundred thousand to further capitalise the project. This meant that we had a starting capital of two point five million pounds. Over and above this to bail out one local business because the scheme was not yet up and running, McFarlane Enterprises had bought shares in the company to a value that was over one hundred thousand pounds.

This enabled them to pay back a loan which was proving to be a burden to the company and it also prevented the bank from putting them into liquidation. Without having to make repayments on the loan the company was able to run at a small profit and each year McFarlane would get a small return on its investment. Under terms of the agreement the said business could buy back these shares when they were profitable enough to do so at the value of the sum McFarlane enterprises had paid for them.

McFarlane Enterprises felt that under the scheme they now proposed many small businesses could be helped to weather the hard times cause by the credit crunch and government cutbacks. Since this was the case she hoped that the junior minister would see this as a scheme worth backing and feel that it was worth making a capital grant. She pointed out that if it worked they could use it as a pilot scheme. If it worked here they would see if it was worthwhile encouraging other area to set up similar schemes with government backing.

At this point she told the meeting that one of the young members of her committee would now give a presentation in which he hoped to show why the government should seriously think of backing this project.

Rory had already set up things for his presentation and now he stepped forward and started his projector. He outlined various ways in which David Cameron in his Idea of 'The Big Society' had suggested how the local community could be involved in initiatives to help their own local area. He pointed out that implicit in this was the government's willingness to back such projects where they were seen as feasible.

What we were proposing was that profitable businesses in the area should set up a fund with government help to provide a safety net for small businesses which were running into difficulty in these hard times. The committee would look at the business and make a decision on whether or not it could be helped

And receive the loan it had applied for.

Then with a series of graphics he showed how small businesses that were otherwise profitable could run into difficulties. First there was the unwillingness of banks to lend. Secondly there was the high interest on the loans when they did. Thirdly there was the fact that they were too quick to foreclose on the loan to recoup some of their money rather than risk backing the company and perhaps suffering greater losses. There were also factors like larger companies taking more time before settling their bills and causing small company's cash flow problems. Then there was the reluctance of consumers to spend in these times of uncertainty about their own jobs.

With proper assessment about which companies would survive the credit crunch with our help this scheme would keep small businesses afloat, provide greater job security, lessen unemployment, and so maintain the prosperity of the area until times picked up again. Why should we put so much effort into keeping these businesses afloat he had asked? He then showed how many people were employed in this area by such business.

He revealed how many of the larger businesses relied on the smaller ones to supply them locally with products they needed. This meant lower transport costs, savings on fuel, and cheaper outlays for the larger companies. Surely by seeking to provide this kind of aid and to do it ourselves at the local level fitted in perfectly with the prime minister's concept of the big society so they should see it as an excellent project worthy of their backing.