Open Writing

I stood gawping at the loaf and four currant teacakes waiting to be paid for on the counter. Had the assistant really asked for 60 pence?

Did my usual conversion – that’s twelve shillings – a ten bob note and two bob piece in old money? For one loaf, euphemistically termed ‘large’ and four current teacakes, which appear to shrink every week. At one time my weekend bread would lift the lid off the bread bin, nowadays the same order doesn’t even reach the top.

If I take a bus to town with my three schoolgirls, our fifth former is now classed an adult – the fare there and back costs us £1.68 or in old coinage about 35 bob – for two and two halves.

A pensioner tells me if she buys a packet of flour, a packet of sugar and half a pound of butter, that’s one pound note gone, straight away. Was there ever a time I rode the trolley to Huddersfield with half a crown tucked in my mother’s big leather purse; feeling like Lady Docker because my instructions were to ‘bring me a cake and a quarter of tea from Collinson’s you can spend the rest.’

‘Are you prepared for decimal currency?’ ran a headline in December, 1970, two months before D day in February, 1971. Only seven months after, the price of our weekly food bill had risen by more than 6 per cent.

Eight years ago almost, yet I still revert back to pounds, shillings and pence when I’m feeling particularly fleeced. Then I could buy flour, butter and sugar and still have change from a ten-bob note. You could even buy a jar of coffee and pocket the change from five bob.

We all slipped quickly into the decimal vernacular, it’s only when you stop and do a change-about that the gross expense hits you – painfully. Yes, we have had pay rises and galloping inflation. A pound’s only worth ten-bob – I mean 50p – but I can never get rid of the uneasy feeling we were all ‘conned.’

I have a feast of old penny memories, worthless now of course. Penny drinks of health at Dr Dan's in the old market hall, penny cornets dripping with raspberry vinegar, and penny comics to be laughed over. Sitting around the wireless on Sunday nights listening to Albert Sandler from Palm Court, trying to soothe away the ‘night before school’ ache with an everlasting toffee lolly, price – one penny.

I don’t ever remember buying a penn’orth of chips, but I can remember three ha-porths. If three of us walked home from the pictures our three half-pennies – bus fare from Salendine Nook to Oakes (I wonder how much it is now?) – would buy us a bag of chips to share.

For sixpence we had a real treat, so we imagined. A four-penny cinema seat (first six rows), penny bus fare and a penny left for sweets or a dip in the communal chip bag.

I remember my uncle sending me for five Woodbines with a silver six-pence. Waiting my turn at the Co-op with a shiny black notebook, singing our check number to myself over and over again, so as not to get it mixed up with my Air Force father’s LAC number, only to find the assistant had written it down without even asking me, anyway. Then the excitement of the delivery van on Thursday, dipping into all the bags with open tops before my mother came home from work.

I hope I never forget the pleasures we enjoyed for a penny. When my children reach forty, how many will they recall for the same price? Anyway, I’ve done my share of listening to the ‘When I was you age’ saga – now it’s their turn.

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