‘We’ll build a factory on the moon’: P1 and P2 pupils tell us what they would buy with a billion pounds after a difficult year

It has been an unprecedented year of hectic events at home and abroad and, after 12 months when adults struggled to keep up, there was only one place to go to make sense of it.

Here, we visit St Roch’s Primary and Deaf School in Glasgow to ask five and six-year-old pupils of P1 and P2 for their assessment of a head-spinning year.

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So with billionaires making headlines, from Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk having a race to space, to Bill Gates giving his fortune away, what would the children do with a cool billion or so?

Charlie Pollock, five, is not short of big ideas. “I would build a factory for flying cars and trucks because that’s how we will be travelling in the future,” he says.

“They would run on special energy from the sun. Park them in the clouds with special devices to signal them down in the morning when we waken up. There would be no traffic jams, just flying about.”

Meanwhile, classmate Lily McNulty, five, would open a factory for Santa’s presents and run it with him: “I would have fairies working the machines and injecting magic into every toy to make them all go on their own without batteries that don’t go dud. That would make everyone happy.”

Zach Hope, six, would use a newfound fortune to buy a toy for all the children who go without: “A giant amount of money would make all the children smile because some people just don’t have much. They would get big toy cars and they could travel to school on them and around the playground.”

A visit to the estate agents would top the must-do list for Gianna Murana, six: “I would buy a big house and have birthday parties for everyone. There would be giant cakes and huge cartons of juice that no matter how much you ate would magically grow back.”

Victor Boryga, five, dreams of travelling to school in style, in fancy taxis: “Golden Lamborghinis would be good, made to squash down and fly in the doors of classrooms.”

Brodie Dougan, also five, would spend lots of money taking his classmates into space: “Everyone would walk in space and have school dinners in a rocket but we would have to take our teacher and lunch ladies along to look after us. We could phone our mums and dads on the teachers’ mobiles.”

Darya McFarlane, five, aims to buy a rainbow plane to fly to the top of the world. “It would have all my favourite colours and travel the fastest anyone has every been,” she says.

Finally, a big diamond would be five-year-old Sienna Reid’s best friend and kept in her bunk bed. “I would be the richest, sparkliest person in the street and everyone would come to visit me,” says Sienna. “It would have a special pillow of its own in pink.”

With the UK having a new king and two new prime ministers in 2022, we wondered what the children might like to be when they grown up?

A dramatic future is in store for Gianna, who wants to build and design a huge theatre: “It will be gigantic because I want to see lots of people standing and clapping at famous people singing.

“I like building and making places in different shapes. I don’t want to sing. I just want to build.”

Perhaps her schoolmate Sienna will perform there, as she wants to sing on stage: “I would like to be on television like all the famous people and wear sparkly clothes with big jewellery so everyone could look and take photographs. I would be in all the newspapers and magazines – maybe even telly.”

Meanwhile, Darya is heading for the laboratory to complete some vital research.

“I would carry out experiments and swirl all the stuff about to make magic medicines,” she says. “That would be the most fun anyone could have, seeing all the colours and magic medicines appear.”

© Andrew Cawley

Young Charlie Pollock will be running his flying car factory with ambitions to explore the final frontier: “I want to be an astronaut and in one of the special cars. We would even build a factory on the moon because it cannot be far from here. We can see it in the sky at night so it’s not that far away, is it?”

He might be helped by Victor, who is looking forward to designing cars on his laptop: “I am going to design a better Lamborghini because that’s my favourite car. There would be a device on top to suck up energy from the sun.

“I could also make it travel on water so that we could go along rivers and canals if the roads were busy.”

Lily wants to grow up to be the boss of a new factory at the North Pole, working alongside Santa: “It must take a long time to make the toys so I know we will be busy but I will come home to visit my family for holidays, probably after Christmas.”

The World Cup in 2034 better get ready for Zach, who wants to play for Scotland’s football team one day. “I am good so that’s what I will be when I grow up. Scotland and Celtic are my teams and I am great at scoring goals so I will be picked. Football has always been my favourite, even when I was a baby.”

Brodie is also a talented player and desperate to sign for his favourite team, Celtic. “Scoring goals is the best feeling ever, better than any sweets,” he says. “If I could play for Scotland, we could maybe win the World Cup.”

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has dominated the news for most of the year and we wondered what our young panel might think of leaders who start wars?

The presidents and prime ministers responsible should know better, according to Charlie: “People who start wars should remember that their mums and dad have told them to behave.

“Nobody should be allowed to make a mess of the place and bombs do that. They should be made to say sorry to everyone for being bad.”

Lily also thinks they should be made to think about what they’ve done, like naughty children: “They should be put in ‘time out’ so that they can think about what they have done wrong.”

The naughty step isn’t a strong enough punishment in Brodie’s eyes. He would like to see the baddies sent to an island until they behave: “They should get a row for behaving badly and sent away from everyone else.”

Meanwhile, Zach believes fighting is silly: “It causes more fighting and a bigger fight starts with everyone shooting. That just makes more people be bad. Nobody likes that.”

His verdict is echoed by classmate Gianna: “We should just take the guns from them so that they can’t fight any more. Bad people should not have guns.”

© Andrew Cawley

Sienna says those responsible should stop scaring people: “All the children are frightened by bombs and guns and so people who start wars should know this. I have seen children crying on TV in a war.”

According to Victor, the answer is simple: keep the bad men away from guns, although he has still to thrash out the details. “I don’t know how you can do that, though,” he admits.

Not to worry – classmate Darya knows what is needed: “Big robot police should march in and stop people who want to fight. They should get a big row.”

Social care and how we care for our elderly is one of the most pressing issues facing our politicians, as the SNP forge ahead with plans for a National Care Service, so we asked our young panel where should gran and grandpa live?

The verdict was unanimous – every child wants their grandparents to live in a lovely house not far from them.

However, Charlie wants them to be far enough away to make it worthwhile getting his car out of the hangar. He says: “A big house with lots of animals would be good and I could fly in my new space car to visit them.”

Lily would like grandparents to spend the rest of their lives on holiday – “Florida would be fancy and we could visit them in the school holidays. There would have to be a swimming pool” – although Zach thinks Australia would be cool, too: “It is safer there because coronavirus is hardly there at all.”

Or maybe a floating retirement, with Sienna suggesting a big boat, would be nice: “We could go on fancy holidays all the time and sing in the ballroom with flashing lights.”

Or maybe a happy ending, with Darya suggesting a fairytale cottage in the countryside. “I could do and visit them every weekend,” she says. “I don’t think they should live in a skyscraper even if it is good being up high with rainbows.”

Brodie wants his grandparents to travel the world: “They should see every country and eat in big fancy hotels but not forget to send us a postcard or invite us to stay with them when they get to the beach.”

Victor’s grandparents live in Poland and he’d like them much closer to home: “I would like to see them a lot more and go out to the cinema with them. We see them on our phones but it is best to live near your grandparents.”