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Once Upon a Time…

Date: 1st February 2025

Once Upon a Time…

Okay, children, are you sitting comfortably?

Picture the scene

It is a bleak February morning in the Tynecastle, Tiny Tots Nursery.

All of the children have been brought round the story chair in order to hear how The Budge became the heroine of the hour.

But in all good fairy stories, you need a villain.

And in this story, that villain is Mr Romanov the Czar.

An epic tale of how the son of a Russian veteran Red Army soldier, who was a submariner in the Soviet Navy, came across to the Tynecastle, Tiny Tots Nursery and corrupted and stole the Tynecastle, Tiny Tots Nursery away from the people until The Budge rode in from the east and battered him away.

The truth, however, is often stranger than the fiction.

The reason that this morning those tiny children were sitting listening to the story was that the local newspaper on the Gorgie Road had decided to publish an interview with people who had been there at the time that the Czar had tried to rule the whole of the Gorgie Road.

He had been a mythical figure. Then and now it was believed that they had found him on a submarine somewhere in northwest Russia living like a hermit, shouting and screaming at passers-by, madly shouting that he was somebody who had been badly mistreated by The Budge.

But was that the truth?

The children were about to be told that tale.

And as the children settled into their bean bags, crossed their legs, poised attentively to hear the story across from them, they were looking directly at an imposing figure in a funny-looking wide brimmed hat and uniform in the form of a painting that was the Czar.

In his world, they were told, everybody outside of the Tynecastle, Tiny Tots Nursery was not to be trusted. They were people who were not to be allowed in. Everybody was to be on their guard, and he would keep them safe.

At first, the Czar was very good.

Everybody loved him.

He was generous and gave lots of cash and money to people and brought in a highly respected fun man, Mr. Skacel, who, in the first seven weeks, made such an impression that everybody loved and adored him as the best fun man they had ever had. At the beginning the people that the Czar brought in were very nice people. People that everybody loved. People that everybody thought would do a fantastic job. But the Czar never liked them. Because the Czar was a lonely and jealous man, and his madness began to infect everything he saw and all that he touched.

And so, the ball pool was thrown into the sandpit.

One day, the sandpit was mixed with the water features.

Things became increasingly bizarre.

The Czar’s ego was as tall and as wide as the Tynecastle Tiny Tots Nursery itself. And even when they were doing so well, when Mr. Skacel was joined by a Mr. Burley, as manager, somebody that everybody thought would never have come to be at the Tynecastle Tiny Tots Nursery, but the Czar had made him an offer that Mr. Burley could not refuse.

But Mr. Burley only lasted a short time, after making the Tynecastle Tiny Tots nursery the best in the whole of the country.

It was not long before the mythology of the Czar went from him being a Cossack dancer to a Lithuanian magnate of many, many pounds. He was a man who wanted to change everything. From the maroon uniform which he wanted in green and yellow.

He wanted to interfere in every single aspect of the Tynecastle, Tiny Tots Nursery.

He talked of changing the name from Tynecastle to Dynamo or Sparta because they sounded names that he would install fear in everybody who came across him or the Tynecastle, Tiny Tots Nursery.

There were then many people who came from his country to help him.

They came from Lithuania not from Russia and people began to get suspicious.

They began to get suspicious because the mythology was beginning to fall apart and so when Scottish people like Mr. Robertson or Mr. Burley or an Englishman called Mr. Rix or more Scots like Mr. Frail, Mr. Jeffries, Mr. McGlynn or Mr. Locke came in but did not last longer than a few months, people started to assemble and wonder.

There was even a man called Roman Romanov, and he was the Czar’s son. Heir to the throne you would think but he upset and annoyed his father, and the rumour was that he was sent away to somewhere Minking in the middle of Russia.

At that the children in the Tynecastle, Tiny Tots Nursery all wooed and made the noises that you would expect to boo this particular villain, the Czar.

As the story continued it told of how, by now, the Tynecastle, Tiny Tots Nursery was in a complete mess.

Things were not as they should be.

There were no smooth running and well drilled lines that were waiting to go down the chute and land in the ball pool.

There was chaos when it came to face painting and strange animals were being painted that had no place in Tynecastle at all!

The whole of the nursery had a gloom and a doom hanging about it until the mythology came crashing down and the money that the Czar had said he had was not where he said he had put it. His pot of gold had all gone, and he had no money left and the Tynecastle, Tiny Tots Nursery was starting to paint For Sale signs and Nursery Closed signs that were to be put up.

Everybody round about began to get very, very frightened. There were strange people banging on the doors wanting to know when they would get paid by the Tynecastle, Tiny Tots Nursery.

The roof began to leak and then the people began to rally, and they built upon their assembly. They needed a saviour. They got together and became the Foundation of the Future, and the Foundation of the Future found a champion.

They found a heroine and as the book was closed by the person telling the tale, the Tynecastle, Tiny Tots Nursery children all sat back and turned their heads from this imposing figure with a funny hat, known as the Czar, to the statuette of The Budge astride a white charger in a statuesque and beautiful form that had been unveiled that morning with the legend underneath the saviour.

And so ended the first chapter of nine of how the Czar had corrupted and nearly lost for the people, the Tynecastle, Tiny Tots Nursery.

And the children all went off to play as they would.

And in the corner The Budge sat with a little smile and a confident smirk that the story, the legend of the Czar was about to be put to the sword. And perhaps the legend and the myth of herself was about to be raised up beyond a simple whisper.

 

Whilst the author asserts his right to this as an original piece of work there is no evidence, unless you know differently that Ann Budge is having a statue of herself unveiled outside Tynecastle, so this is clearly a work of fiction.

The fact is that the BBC are about to launch a nine-part podcast, Romanov Czar of Hearts which shall tell the real tale… unless you know differently…


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