Open Writing

Pennies -- once there were 240 of them to the pound sterling, an astronomical sum for a young person of seven decades ago, so much so that such figures never troubled our uncomplicated lifestyles. To me, in those early days of wonder, adventure and discovery, the possession of a penny to spend as and how we wished was a thrill indeed.

How we came by the penny in the first place is another story. The concern here is how the win was to be disposed of. That in itself could and did present a complexity of option. To begin with, much would depend on where we were at the time. That is to say, were we at home or abroad? ‘At home’ meant that the choices were more limited than if we were abroad, when ‘abroad’ usually meant the seaside on a day’s outing, either under parental guidance or en masse on day school or Sunday School annual outings.

Whatever the venue, the first dilemma would be the choice between something edible or non-edible, a problem more easily resolved if we were on home ground, since the variants were less than those on offer at the seaside, provided, that is, that Bonfire Night was not imminent. If so, then we were back amongst the variants. Was it to be a coconut snowball and a ha’p’orth of kali or a Little Demon firecracker?

The local Feast could also prove perplexing, whether to chance one’s ‘fortune’ on a roll-the-penny stall, buy a bag of fried chats, or invest in the purchase of big sugared jellies, which yielded about four of them to the penn’orth, and thereby ignoring totally parental advice to buy the hard-boiled Yorkshire Mixtures, as they lasted longer. You had to suck ’em not chomp ’em. At least to begin with one had to do so.

The perplexities and bewilderments were trying, to say the least, especially for the immature mind of a ten-year-old. And to think that at the outset of this dissertation reference was made to ‘our uncomplicated lifestyles’.

Yet there was the possibility of worse to come when that much-anticipated day at the seaside arrived. Temptations then commenced as soon as we set foot on the railway station platform, these in the shape of penny-slot machines loaded with chocolate bars, those slim tablets, red-paper-wrapped bearing the name Nestles (Nestlés today) in gold letters. Who could resist such lure?

If the station platform contained one trap for the hot pennies which were burning holes in our pockets, then the seaside represented an entire minefield. Anticipation of the day’s outing could have resulted in the acquiring of a small cache of pennies, from which, without any effort whatsoever, it was possible to become violently sick by the spending of perhaps only six of those coins. A Bramley apple or a bag of crab-apples -- neither of which, incidentally, was ever completely eaten -- served as a strong acidic foundation upon which to build layer upon layer of an ice cream cornet, a bottle of pop, a Milky Way -- they were only 1d, Mars Bars were 2d -- then a penn’orth of chips and perhaps a stick of rock to suck by way of dessert. Agitate that mixture with a ride on the galloping horses roundabout, and volcanic style eruptions often followed.

A later visit to a penny arcade revealed rows of machines, each with a prodigious appetite for pennies. One could flick ball bearings round a circular frame in the hope that they would enter one of the prize-bearing holes strategically placed to prevent such an event occurring. There was also the automatic crane which delved its claws into a sea of desirables, there to grasp but not to grip, so that the swinging grab hovered empty over the tempting prizes.

For light relief one could always watch the guillotine in operation, complete with the condemned victim’s head dropping into a basket; no blood though. Still, what could you expect for 1d? Less bloodthirsty was the hanging, where a whole body disappeared through a trapdoor with a noose around the neck. We could try to see ‘What the Butler Saw’ if we thought the attendant wasn’t looking.

There was a machine which embossed letters and numbers onto a metallic strip at a cost of 1d per letter or number, or a given number of letters. The letters were selected by moving a large pointer around the circle alphabet, then pulling a lever to stamp the selected letter onto the metal band. Evil-minded boys would watch and wait until the final letter was about to be stamped out. Then, just as the lever was being pulled and the point of no return reached, a quick flick of the pointer would result in a wrong letter being embossed, thus another work of art ruined and precious coppers wasted.

If finances held out, then a comic might be purchased, light reading for the journey home. ‘Comic Cuts’, ‘Larks’, and ‘Jester’ were three such available in those young- boy years, costing only 1d each.

Other purchases for 1d included domestic gas, available through a penny-operated gas meter. One could become the proud owner of a bank book for a penny deposit at the Yorkshire Penny Bank, whilst telegrams could be sent at a cost of one penny per word, and that included personal delivery to the recipient by a cycle-riding pillbox-hatted telegram boy.

A cup of tea cost 1d, whilst coffee was 2d. Both led inevitably to the need to ‘spend a penny’, a phrase still in use today although no longer applicable in cost.

One local shopkeeper, catering especially for school children displayed two cardboard boxes containing assorted sweets laid out neatly for inspection. One box contained 1d items, whilst the other held ½d purchases. Oh, the deliberation and cogitation involved as we poured over the delectables, bewildered by the variety arrayed before us. Yet a choice finally had to be made, be it liquorice root, coconut snowball, a lucky-bag, Bassety juice, Spanish braid, a bull’s eye, a gob-stopper, hanky-panky, a piece of cinder toffee or a penn’orth of aniseed balls. Then again, it could have been Poor Ben’s.

In the days when cinema and theatre goers would stand in queues prior to admission, then a familiar sight would be that of street vendors plying their wares before the awaiting patrons. Penny Annie was one such. She hawked her eatables along the lines outside the entrance to the ‘gods’ of the rear of the Empire Theatre, Dewsbury. Her offerings never varied in choice. Thus her patter became standard and to the young mind it was an easily remembered rhythm: “Apples a penny, oranges a penny, peanuts a penny, P.K.s a penny.”

My father was a textile worker and a union member. As a small boy I recall the union man visiting us every Friday night to collect my father’s subscription. I was too young at the time to appreciate his reason for calling on us but not too young to ignore the visits, since it was that collector’s practice to present me with two ha’pennies, a ritual which I looked forward to with great anticipation. One week, I recall, the conversation between my father and my benefactor continued for such a length of time -- or so it seemed to me -- that I thought I was going to miss out on my weekly dole. So I reminded the kind soul of his presumed omission. My intervention put an end to all debate on union matters, and I suddenly became the centre of attraction, with both my parents berating me for a lack of good manners and impatience. Needless to say, I never again committed that breach of protocol.

Many and various were the purchases which could be made through the use of the humble penny. In addition to the delights at the seaside which could be acquired for that amount, there were, for the same cash outlay, coloured postcards, a view through a telescope, tram and bus rides both at home and abroad, a heap of fried chips or their close cousins collops, a box of matches, a visit to Marks and Spencer’s Penny Bazaar or Woolworth’s, each a veritable Aladdin’s cave to young eyes. One could get weighed and receive a printed card as visual proof and record, use the coin to lever tight-fitting lids off tins or to remove paint splashes from windows, search frantically for one such hidden as part of a parlour game for the young. Beethoven even wrote an attractive piano work entitled ‘Search for a Lost Penny’. The list goes on. This one is far from complete.

It is when one reads the catalogue of uses to which the modest penny might be put that one begins to appreciate the power wielded by that coin, especially in the lives of the young, and often the not-so-young, during a time when the little things of life meant so much.