Generations of kids in the north-east grew up drinking the incredibly sweet red juice called Moray Cup, which stripped the enamel off your teeth even if you drank it out of a straw.

Made in Macduff, it was the area’s answer to Irn-Bru, except it was even sweeter and worse for your teeth and general all-round health than its rival from the central belt.

Sadly, Moray Cup ceased to be made in 2017, with the manufacturers blaming the sugar tax, which tells you all you need to know.

What also made Moray Cup stand out was its rather bizarre labelling, which had two black men drinking glasses of orange juice in a setting that was most definitely not Macduff or even nearby Buckie.

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Because of this, Moray Cup was known by local kids as “black mannie ale” and the reason why they were on the label has never been properly explained.

Perhaps it was to give the false impression that there was actually fruit in the drink that was picked in some far off land.

This was a time when manufacturers used crude racial stereotypes as a matter of course if they wanted to highlight how exotic their product was, even though it wasn’t.

In Moray Cup’s instance, the stereotype was not as bad as say, Robertson’s jam, which came with a golly on the label until the image was dropped as late as 2010.

But just because the racial stereotype is milder than some, it is still a racial stereotype and thankfully no longer exists.

The Herald:

Nor indeed does the Robertson’s golly but the contentious dolls are still capable of causing a total stushie, judging by recent events in Essex.

Five Essex Police officers raided the White Hart Inn in Grays last week after receiving a hate crime complaint in February because there were several of the dolls on display in the pub.

The dolls, based on 18th-century minstrels, are now considered to be racist caricatures. Last week, four Essex police officers and a trainee seized all the dolls on show in the White Hart Inn in Grays as part of an investigation into an alleged hate crime.

Police said an investigation was ongoing after a “member of the public reported being distressed after attending a venue off Argent Street” – where the pub is located.

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But owner Benice Ryley, 62, said she “can’t see any harm” and that the 30 or so dolls had been donated over the years by her aunt and the pub’s customers.

Bizarrely, she has since assembled replacements, which she plans to display in defiance of a continuing investigation.

The dolls are said to divide opinion in Grays with some regulars showing support, while others in the town have also expressed their fury. 

Mrs Ryley refuses to accept they are racist, even when they clearly are.
She added: “I’m getting a notice printed saying, ‘We’ve got gollies on display, if you find this offensive please don’t come in’. If they don’t like them they can walk out the door.”

It seems likely that the couple could be charged as there are various previous examples of people being prosecuted for doing exactly the same thing.

The Herald:

But what started out as a wee local dispute, gained national notoriety when that arbiter of good taste, humour and tolerance, Suella Braverman, got involved.

The Home Secretary is said to have contacted Essex Police to make her feelings known. A Home Office source told media that she regards it as a waste of police resources.

They said: “The Home Secretary’s views have now been made very plain to Essex Police so they’re under no illusions. Police forces should not be getting involved in this kind of nonsense.” 

Now, there is a lot going on in all of this and it is clear that nobody really comes out of it very well and it’s a classic case of the world going a little bit mad.

Sending five police officers to seize the dolls does seem completely over the top. What did they expect the gollies to do – fight back? Be drunk and disorderly?

But the Home Secretary’s response is also completely over the top. Police operations are a matter for individual forces and not ministers. In this case a potential crime seems to have been committed.      

However, the real villains of the piece are the Ryleys, who must have known what they were doing when they put them in the bar. It was to wind people up, knowing that eventually someone would complain.

You need to be racist to think this is acceptable; you wouldn’t do it for any other reason than to make a childish point about the “snowflake culture”. I’m all for freedom of speech but I can also spot an attention-seeker when I see one.