please empty your brain below
Does anyone remember the short educational programmes with the jolly Liverpool pop group The Scaffold (including Roger McGough) that were on each day?

Barty | 15.02.11 - 7:10 a.m. | #

Thanks DG - interesting! And is this a bit odd, or the product of some research? Australia's decimal changeover day was 14 February 1966: something about mid-February??

Now for proper conversion to metric, please!

EskimoPie | 15.02.11 - 7:12 a.m. | #

A £7 bill at a Lyons Corner House in, say, 1970? Compared to average earnings, that would be £146 now — a real feast.

Roger D | 15.02.11 - 7:49 a.m. | #

Linking to the Daily Mail? For shame.

Larry Lard | 15.02.11 - 8:15 a.m. | #

When my family left the UK in 1963, my mother kept some money. A few years ago I remember looking at it and seeing that all the coins where from 1948. That is the year of my birth.

Michael | 15.02.11 - 8:50 a.m. | #

Having been brought up with £sd, in school maths classes I used to find decimals mysterious and confusing.

Great Aunt Annie | 15.02.11 - 8:55 a.m. | #

I remember buying petrol at 4/-6d a gallon.
(Four shillings and sixpence).
I doubt if changing to Euros would be very difficult as only the names of the coins would change. The arithmetic still being in tens.

John | 15.02.11 - 9:05 a.m. | #

Had you been between 7 and 13 years older at the time, you would have discovered the pleasures of subjecting the new and rather flimsy 1/2p coin to everything the physics lab and metalwork class could throw at it.


Ham | Homepage | 15.02.11 - 9:22 a.m. | #

I was decimalised twice. Australia did it in 1966 (on 14 February, coincidentally), and I came to Britain in 1968.

I recall someone saying in 1971, "Only the British could go decimal and retain the halfpenny!"

Peter Cameron | Homepage | 15.02.11 - 10:09 a.m. | #

I remember my two brothers and I used to get sent a £1 postal order to share between us at Christmas by some elderly friend of my father. Before decimalisation 6s 8d each - easy. Afterwards - somebody only go 33p!

Veronica | 15.02.11 - 10:42 a.m. | #

"Only the British could go decimal and retain the halfpenny".

Whilst that young whipper snapper DG was playing with his cardboard or may be even plastic money I was down the pub drinking mine and joining in the debates of the day - such as what useful purpose does the halfpenny serve.
The politicians of the time were concerned that changing the British currency unit from the pound sterling to say the British dollar, franc or mark would unsettle international confidence - say it was decided to keep the pound and make the new penny worth 2.4 old pennies. In so doing they unwiitingly twisted the crank handle of inflation by coarsening the granularity of the structure by which shop prices were set. The introduction of the new halfpenny compromised the decimal system and there was widespread institutional and popular resistance against its use - vending machines,parking meters, phone boxes etc would not take the coin - so the services thet provided were increased in price by full new pence. Pricing sticker machines and cash registers had to developed for the UK market only - (export markets -hah - who needs them?). The new halfpenny rapidly fell into disrepute and then disuse. Prices then rose in new pence - supposedly less often than before according to the official theory but the latter was based on a flawed assumption about the inherent benevolence of the free market and an inability to understand the implications of Gresham's law.

Mwmbwls | 15.02.11 - 10:49 a.m. | #

As someone who's still pretty inmumerate, and had to do "£sd" sums in junior school, the adoption of decimal currency was to some extent welcome. But the worst thing was the replacement of our beautifully-designed coinage by naff, plain, simple 'Janet & John' designs. (Think Tony Benn, or Harold Wilson's "Forged in the white heat of technology" etc.) Decimalisation may have occured in 1971 but really it was a child of the 1960s, a Labour "modernisation" happily endorsed by Ted Heath, and another symbol of the establishment to be swept aside in the new Britain. No longer could one get the thrill of receiving a Victorian penny or halfpenny in change, sometimes going back to before the 1860s, and wonder at the history of that coin. Even the occasional 2/- bit lettered "One Florin" was found at times. The original coinage sizes, which ranged logicaly upwards in size by value in both "bronze" and "silver" series, and which were intially re-used for the new decimal coins of 1971, were later augmented by new 20p, £1 and £2 peices added in a piecemeal fashion. These were all shrunk in size subsequently, and more recently some hideous "devided royal shield" design has been introduced on the reverse. Our coinage is so debased in appearance now I had given up all opposion to the Euro on ashthetic grounds, before the crash rendered its possibility in the UK politically impossible anyway. Simon Heffer wrote a piece lamentimg the end of our traditional currency last week but just because it was by him doesn't mean the sentiments aren't right!

Kim | 15.02.11 - 11:19 a.m. | #

I remember 15 February 1971 well, I was helping to run the school tuck shop :)
Actually for all of the cheesy publicity at the time, and the questionable decision to keep the pound already mentioned above, the project as a whole was one of the best executed government exercises of all time in my view!

Tim | 15.02.11 - 12:19 p.m. | #

Being a visitor to Britain, I still had an experience with the old coins, less than ten years ago at a supermarket in Shepherd's Bush. At the checkout, I was rummaging in my purse for the exact amount and found a little coin which I thought was a penny but was in fact a sixpence. "This one's not valid anymore", the cashier explained to me. No idea where I got the sixpence in the first place, but I still have it today.

Joachim | 15.02.11 - 12:25 p.m. | #

I was born in 1974 so I have only ever known decimal currency. Though I do remeber getting the shilling coins for 5p and the florin for 10p.

What I really do miss though with all the new coins we have now is the pound note. When I was younger if you had a couple of pound in notes you felt like you were rich. You don't get the same feeling with coins.

Barry | 15.02.11 - 12:27 p.m. | #

As to the question above asking why the change over occured in February in both Australia and the UK: Its all to do with the volume of money in use across the year - February is a retail low point, after the huge volume of cash in circulation at christmas - doing the change over in February means less coinage is immediately required in circulation.

Mark | 15.02.11 - 12:55 p.m. | #

I remember a ryme that went

Decimal point is small and round Decimal point is funny

It divides the pence from pounds when your writing money

Always stuck in my brain

Paul Allen | 15.02.11 - 1:10 p.m. | #

Anybody know why the symbol used for old pence was d. I seem to vaguely recall it was metioned on QI as it represent a Latin word. What that word is I can't remember

Barry | 15.02.11 - 2:29 p.m. | #

Barry it originated from the Latin words "librae, solidi, denarii"
Being a couple of years older than you I was right in the middle of trying to understand the old coinage when decimalisation came in. I vaguely recall I'd just had a 'eureka' moment when I had to start all over again!

I'm now in the states and still firmly entrenched in the imperial measures, and so now, when faced with grams and kilos, cms & metres, I think I have a bit of an inkling how people must have felt back then!

CornishCockney | 15.02.11 - 4:54 p.m. | #

I was in the 1st form at Harrow County Boys Grammar School at the time. In the first year, we were put into forms according to which primary school we had come from (mainly because some primary schools did more French than others!).

The Underground decimalised its fares a week ahead of the buses, so the boys from Roxbourne, who came in by the Met from Rayners Lane, all had their decimal coins before us lot from Belmont or Priestmead, who had to wait another week.

Steve Bird | 15.02.11 - 5:37 p.m. | #

Have I stumbled on the Daily Mail rant-a-thon by mistake?

Chris p | 15.02.11 - 9:26 p.m. | #

New Zealand decimalised from NZ Pounds to NZ Dollars on 10 July 1967.

Uroskin | Homepage | 15.02.11 - 10:13 p.m. | #

Decimalisation was wonderful for a person bad at maths, like me. I wonder what you think of the new coin designs, which have been around for about two years? They have designs which were originally straightforward but which have been chopped in half for no obvious reason and make me feel a bit dizzy. They look as if they were by designed by a Young British Artist or a Work Experience person aged c. 16. (Yes, I should go on the TV programme "Grumpy Old Women"!)

Vivien | 15.02.11 - 11:54 p.m. | #

I suck badly at maths, but would trade off looking like a complete idiot for "the thrill of receiving a Victorian penny or halfpenny in change, sometimes going back to before the 1860s". Are there not stories of coins being found in change that were worth far more than their face value in terms of their collectability?

Antipodean | 16.02.11 - 7:51 a.m. | #

Just remembered the old threepenny bit
(3d coin), certainly not suitable for decimal use.

John | 16.02.11 - 7:57 a.m. | #

Chris p - yes, 40 years too late!

Debster | Homepage | 16.02.11 - 10:07 a.m. | #

My family seemed to keep all their pre-decimal coins after the change, and I remember always enjoying sorting through them for many years later looking for the oldest coins amongst them. And yes, there were some Victorian pennies amongst them.

My father called them 'bun' pennies, though I don't know if that was because you could buy a bun with one, or if it was due to Queen Vic's hairstyle!

CornishCockney | 16.02.11 - 5:25 p.m. | #

John at 9:05

Spare a thought for the Dutch, who had to give up their beloved 'qwart'; their equivalent of our half crown coin, and the inspiration for the US 'quarter'.

Besides that, they lost the loveliest banknotes in all of Europe and took in a shoddy assemblage of fantasy doors, windows and bridges designed by a Belgian on his lunchbreak.

Roehamster | 16.02.11 - 7:51 p.m. | #

The new coins are great, apart from the fact that they don't have the amount on them in numerals, which is just design-ponce silly.

davebabs | 17.02.11 - 9:55 a.m. | #

I still have my mother's collection of threepences, sixpences and shillings - because they're made of silver and thus can still be cooked into the family Christmas pudding (for us to choke on, if we're not careful). When Australia decimalized in 1966, with an equally twee public awareness campaign, they had to warn the cooks of the day not to stir the new currency into the Christmas mix. The nickel base of the new coins would have poisoned the lot of us.

Rose | Homepage | 19.02.11 - 2:11 a.m. | #











TridentScan v2.10.0 | Privacy Policy