The Tics and the Lings!

When I worked in a primary school - which I did for about forty years - I led many assemblies. Like all school assemblies these usually contained a story or a poem. Something inspirational from which the children could hopefully learn something about the world or themselves. Sometimes these were religious, sometimes not. In the years since I retired I have often reflected that I would now be unable to tell some of the stories I once did. Either the children would not understand since it was no longer part of their world and something to which they could relate, or the world has moved on and what was once a 'given' about how people behave or should behave is no longer the case. Sadly, some of the stories I told, which were no more than gentle reminders to the children about how to behave or how to grow into  responsible members of society have, as the years have passed, developed an awful significance and the become self fulfilling prophecies.

The story below which I told many times - with its wonderful punchline - always brought a gasp from the kids. I first started telling this story in the mid 1970s when green issues were largely unknown and when, it seems to me now, the world was a much simpler place. But over the years I had to add bits to make the story more relevant to what the children saw on their TV screens or heard adults discussing:

Two small planets hurtled through space, they circled around their sun for millions of years. One of the planets was populated by beings called Lings. The other planet had a population of Tics. At night the Tics would look at the planet of the Lings quite unaware of the existence of life on that planet. On the planet of the Lings, they too would gaze upwards and look at the silver ball in the sky never dreaming it was full of Tics.

The millennia passed.

Then, one day a small space craft set off from the planet of the Lings and powered its way through space .  Three or four days later it landed on the planet of the Tics. Its door opened and out clambered three space suited Spacelings. They climbed into their buggy and began to investigate this new world, their own planet's nearest neighbour. It was soon apparent to the Lings that the planet was quite uninhabited. There was no sign of life of any kind. No trees, no plants, no insects or animals, no water. Nothing but dust and dirt. There was no sign whatsoever of people of any kind.

The Spacelings explored but to no avail. The planet was quite empty and dead. But, as they made their way back to their spacecraft they came across a cave. They stopped to explore and to their amazement found an old book lying in the dust and at the side of the book a few bones. It had clearly lain there for many thousands of years. They buried the bones and carefully picked  up the book and headed back to the space craft -  anxious to report back to their superiors at home.

Back on board they carefully opened the book and found page after page of ancient, neat writing. It told the story of the great Tic civilizations that had once lived on the planet. They read that once the planet had been filled with millions of Tics. Tics of every colour and  every belief. There were yellow Tics, white Tics, red Tics, black Tics. There were Tics who drove buses, Tics who taught in schools, Tics who worked in banks, Tics who worked in hospitals, Soldiertics,  Scientics and Footballtics and Shopkeepertics. There had been cities, farms, factories, motorways, animals, forests, rivers, mountains, deep oceans and all the other things that the Spacelings knew so well. It was just like at home.

But as they read further, they realised that all was not well. The book told them that the different coloured Tics often argued amongst themselves. There was colour prejudice. Some Tics were looked down on by other Tics. There were different classes of Tics and the some had special privileges. These Upper Classtics went to special schools and looked down on the Ordinary Tics.  Many Tics  were greedy and took more than their share of the planet’s resources. Other Tics became overweight in some parts of the planet whilst others starved in other Tic countries. The various governments were often corrupt and allowed some Tics to become extremely wealthy whilst ordinary Tics were often unemployed and poor.  The planet was filled with great inequality which made people angry and often violent. Often the young Tics could not find work and so could not afford to buy a home of their own and so became angry with the older Tics.


Some Tic countries polluted the atmosphere and said that this was the price you had to pay for progress. Tics across the planet were using more and more of the planet's resources and then just throwing  things away so the countryside and the oceans became filled with rubbish. Many Tics had polluting cars which harmed the atmosphere and caused illness and the Scientics spoke out and said if we carry on like this our planet will become polluted and die. The atmosphere will warm, the ice caps will melt and the seas will rise and cause great floods said the Scientics.  Many Politiciantics and Religioustics warned that unless the governments did more to help people, tackle pollution and become more caring then the Tic society was in grave danger.  But many Tics wouldnt listen, "We must have our cars and our TVs and all the other things that we like" they said. Nor would many of those in power listen – they said ‘No this is progress - it is what the Tics want, there is no alternative, it is what makes us rich.’ But it didn’t make Tics in some countries rich, it made them poor for they were forced to labour in sweat shops in order to provide cheap products for the rich Tics of the planet. And the poor Tics became angry and resentful. Many wealthy Tics and Tic companies cheated on the amount of Tic tax for which they were liable and as a result countries and governments had less money to provide for things like schools and healthcare.  There were also, the book said, some Tics who wielded great power. For example, newspaper owners who wielded  influence through  newspapers and TV empires and these Mediatics encouraged everyone   to live the good life; "Go on", they said, "buy what you  want - you know it makes sense and you're worth it" And these Mediatics told ordinary Tics to vote for who the Tic’s the newspapers approved of rather than think for themselves.  And many Tics did. And many Tics stopped thinking and asking questions and so more and more evil people were allowed to gain power because nobody cared anymore.   And the great Tic superpower USstic and its close friend UKtic were amongst the worst of the Tic nations - these countries were very unequal and more and more people said "Politics is boring, all politicians are the same so I can't be bothered to vote I just want to enjoy my TV, watch Strictly Come Dancing and go on holiday, and to have a nice life. I can't be doing with all these so called experts who tell me that life can't go on like this - they need to get a life"And the UStic which was the richest Tic nation and used up more and more of the planet’s resources and exported much of its violent culture in films and the like to other Tic nations. And other Tics watched and copied. And violence and guns and drugs became part of life across the planet.  And as things got worse and Tic nations became more unequal and divided more and more wars broke out. There were Terrortics who planted bombs and although ordinary Tics  were angry and outraged at that, no-one did anything to solve the problem - they just sent more and more people to prison or started another war, rather than did what was necessary to make things better. Most Tics just said, 'What can I do, I can’t do anything, it's the governments problem and anyway I'm alright'.

And slowly the planet began to fail and then die. The weather began to change and great storms and droughts occurred. Crops began to fail. There were more and more Terrortics attacks as some Tic countries began to feel the effect of the planet’s climate  changes and their people needed food. Millions of these  starving Tics from poor countries began to move to better places as refugees from the climate change and the wars - and there was anger everywhere. The UStic and the UKtic, who had a special relationship fought more wars to keep these Tic nations in order and to make them do as they were told and to stop the refugees. But still they came.

And in the spacecraft, the three Spacelings finished reading and closed the book and silently looked at each other. Without speaking they fired up the rockets and began their journey back home. Three days later they arrived back. They climbed out of their craft and were quickly taken to see their superiors  to be debriefed.

They told their superiors what had happened and what they had read. They took out the book and held it up.  'It is just like our planet’ they said. We Earthlings fight amongst ourselves. We pollute. Our governments are corrupt. We face environmental disaster if we continue to pollute. The Sciencelings tell us so. We fight wars and we cause people to hate us. Half our world starves while the other half is overweight. Our young are unemployed and our governments do nothing about it but tell us that is how it has to be. A few get very rich at the expense of the poor. Our major companies do not pay the tax they should and so those in greatest need suffer. We must do something about it’ said the Spacelings'.

'Well that’s all very interesting" said their superiors, "But so what, it's not our problem, we are just Earthlings. That's what we have politicians for to solve things like this. Don't worry about it, there's more to life.'

There was silence and then the leader of the Spacelings stepped forward said 'Well, read the last page.' He opened the book at the last page and placed it in front of his superiors who looked at the  ancient spidery script.

'Beware, heed my message'  said the writing, 'I am the last surviving Tic. My planet has died. Pollution, wars, violence, prejudice,  greed, people not caring, corruption has killed the  planet and killed our great Tic society. We didn’t listen. We didn't act. We didn't care and now the great planet Luna is no more. I am the last of the Lunatics.'