please empty your brain below
Sorry.
I did write a genuine decimalisation post on the 40th anniversary ten years ago.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 15.02.21 - 12:00 a.m. | #

Brilliant as always. Your UK-based early morning readers are going to get a bit of a shock! I had to check that April hadn't snuck up on me.

martin in canada | 15.02.21 - 2:45 a.m. | #

!5 February 1971 was a great day, I remember it well: the rest day in the 7th Test against the Aussies in Sydney which ended in an England win and a 2-0 series win. Very much better than what's going on on the Indian dirt track this morning.

J. | 15.02.21 - 6:36 a.m. | #

Once again, I appreciate the strategic time of posting.

Jamesthegill | 15.02.21 - 6:36 a.m. | #

Wonderfully absurd, you've skewered quite a few targets too. Bravo!

Frank F | 15.02.21 - 7:24 a.m. | #

In the run up to Brexit I seriously came across people who wanted old money back as it was "simpler"

Simon G | 15.02.21 - 7:26 a.m. | #

I fall into that pretty narrow age band that doesn't remember spending old pennies and halfpennies, but does remember spending a sixpence (worth 2.5 new pence). They ceased to be legal coinage in 1973.

Putters | 15.02.21 - 7:30 a.m. | #

"undecimal" refers to a system working in base 11. Wikipedia tells me that counting by elevens has "purportedly" been used by Maoris and the Pangwa people in current-day Tanzania. And the introduction of notes in Myanmar in 1987 based on multiples of 9 followed introduction of 75 kyat notes for Ne Win's 75th birthday.

Martin | 15.02.21 - 7:34 a.m. | #

Ho ho. Wot no groats?

Tsk tsk. You realise you're giving them ideas?

Autolycus | Homepage | 15.02.21 - 7:51 a.m. | #

Its been downhill ever since we left the gold standard.

Still Anon | 15.02.21 - 7:52 a.m. | #

Henceforward I shall insist on paying solictors' fees and for big-ticket items in guineas (which I still remember in the window displays of our local department store).

Waterhouse | 15.02.21 - 8:00 a.m. | #

I remember 'decimal bingo' being relayed over the radio for us as 10 year olds in class, as part of our education for the big change.

In North East Essex, decimilisation day was over shadowed by Colchester knocking Don Revie's Leeds out of the FA Cup 48 hours beforehand. Nothing else news wise really got a look in. I cannot think of one event without the other. Matchday programme 1/6 (7.5p)

MO | 15.02.21 - 8:00 a.m. | #

I walked past a church yesterday. It said services 10 and 6. I thought it was the times, but now wondering if they were charging.

Peter B | 15.02.21 - 8:05 a.m. | #

I have been decimalised twice, having come to Britain in 1968 from Australia (which changed in 1966). So now I have to wait for the Australians to follow the British lead, I guess...

Peter Cameron | Homepage | 15.02.21 - 8:12 a.m. | #

To be honest, I was half expecting one of the back row crackpots in the commons to make a big fuss about this post Brexit. A bit like blue passports.

Southern Heights (Light Railway) | 15.02.21 - 8:28 a.m. | #

I don't think that contactless wave & pay is appropriate for our new currency. What's wrong with the old quill pen and parchment when boarding an omnibus ?

Petras409 | 15.02.21 - 8:28 a.m. | #

D-day! Yes remember that only too well. Working in a bank,we had a long day of it with all converting it all,including the ledgers. Yes we still had loads of those to handwrite the change of balance.
My gran who was seventy seven on that day reckoned the government were confusing her and they should have waited until all the old people died. 😉

Jo W | 15.02.21 - 8:30 a.m. | #

I remember my pocket money changing from 6d to 2 1/2p.

A few old pennies in the pocket made a different jangling noise from the new ones. At first, this made the new money not feel quite so real.

NickW | 15.02.21 - 8:37 a.m. | #

What, no silver threepenny bit?
Great stuff DG, I remember that fifty years ago day well.

davews | 15.02.21 - 8:39 a.m. | #

You may well mock, but a poll for the independent found that 9% of brexit voters wanted to bring back pre decimal currency, and 43% to bring back pounds and ounces.

Ian | 15.02.21 - 8:40 a.m. | #

Does dg really think that contactless payment is a conspiracy to impoverish the nation or was that bit in character?

harry | 15.02.21 - 8:56 a.m. | #

My memory of the day 50 years ago is that it was during a national strike which had closed most main Post Offices.

Ian | 15.02.21 - 9:05 a.m. | #

We've been in lockdown for so long I have a sneaking feeling that the last time I went to the pub I actually did pay in shillings and pence.

Mark | 15.02.21 - 9:09 a.m. | #

Disturbingly (for me), this shillings instead of pence idea sounds eminently sensible.

Michael T | 15.02.21 - 9:20 a.m. | #

A wonderful post. I admire it, not so much for the basic idea (which is a great piece of satire), but for the telling little details of unreadiness, chumocracy and greed which so typify this regime's handling of everything.

Malcolm of Kent | 15.02.21 - 9:21 a.m. | #

I've just dug out a commemorative plastic wallet of 'Britain's First Decimal Coins' purchased by my parents and given to an 11-year-old me as a D-Day souvenir. It contains 18 1/2 pence in new coins, and I'm surprised I was never tempted to supplement my pocket money by breaking into it! And when clearing and sorting my late parents' house in 2013, I unearthed £3 5s 7 1/4d in pre-decimal money, plus a 'Buy National Savings Certificates' money box designed to take 15/- in sixpenny pieces - it was still full.

Alan S | 15.02.21 - 9:26 a.m. | #

Should we now go back to the sensible method of measuring? Yards, furlongs chains. I can fathom that out easier.

Gibson Square | Homepage | 15.02.21 - 9:30 a.m. | #

I remember using my last 5d as a tip in a snack bar that thought 3s 9d was 22p in new money (about 4s 5d) - still not bad value for my lasagne.

Dave B | 15.02.21 - 9:35 a.m. | #

On D-day my school dinner money changed from 8/9d (divisible by 5) to 44 new pence (not divisible by 5).

David Cook | 15.02.21 - 9:36 a.m. | #

Poles, perches, anyone? Yet spare the rod. If only we'd had the courage to go metric with everything as well as currency, instead of stopping hallway in the current mess.

Tim W. | 15.02.21 - 9:46 a.m. | #

I demand that cheques are brought back as an acceptable form of payment in all shops.

Scott | Homepage | 15.02.21 - 9:53 a.m. | #

Twelve pence to the shilling was eminently sensible as 12 can be divided by 2, 3, 4 and 6.

The real mistake was that our forefathers adopted a system of counting based on 10 because we had ten digits. If only we had been born with 12 digits we could have aligned a sensible currency to our counting system.

Pedantic of Purley | 15.02.21 - 10:07 a.m. | #

I had a frustrating conversation with my granddaughter yesterday about the benefits of working in bases of 3, 12, 20 etc. Hit a brick wall.

Caroline | 15.02.21 - 10:08 a.m. | #

"Expect the changeover to be completed seamlessly" - now where have I heard that before?

Rick | 15.02.21 - 10:39 a.m. | #

Phew - great development to right a grievous historical wrong. Also retrieves all those hitherto-wasted hours in primary school multiplying and dividing in £sd!

cau1khead | 15.02.21 - 10:41 a.m. | #

I suspected a spoof until I got to "Instead he's taken advantage of the pandemic and introduced the change overnight as a fait accompli."

I have a vague memory of learning the "New System" as a 1st year Junior pupil, mainly because of having only just grasped a basic understanding of the Old System as a 3rd year Infant!

Cornish Cockney | 15.02.21 - 10:42 a.m. | #

I can't deny it, I do quite like the look of the shilling.

Jonathan Wadman | 15.02.21 - 10:51 a.m. | #

I have been using the phrase "A pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter" with my young son as an elocution exercise for some time to try and arrest a worrying t to d mid-Atlantic shift (also we participate in historical reenactments, so want to ensure he can understand both sets of currencies and units). Definitely not "A pint's a pound the world around" as people from the US would have us believe.

A few years before decimalisation the US moved off silver standard--but silver dollar bills (blue overprinting) and silver quarters stayed in circulation until well into the 1980's

MilesT | 15.02.21 - 11:40 a.m. | #

Pounds and ounces have never gone away! Because unlike pre-decimal currency, or indeed imperial measurements of distance, they are actually simpler (at least for cooking).

Sarah | Homepage | 15.02.21 - 12:43 p.m. | #

For those who think this is just one of DG's sillier attempts at humour, I refer you to "sensible" commentary in the English newspapers - here

Eric | 15.02.21 - 12:43 p.m. | #

As someone neither over 55 nor under 55 (like DG), I have no recollection of the actual event.

But a trip to Austria in the 1990s when there were approximately 20 schillings to the pound stirred some kind of folk memory that made currency conversion very easy indeed.

Man of Kent | 15.02.21 - 1:13 p.m. | #

I am also bang on 55, and I remember it quite clearly. But I always was a mercenary little thing. I also still have my full commemorative set of decimal coins, along with my Silver Jubilee crown and a couple of pound notes (a big one and a small one).

Sarah | Homepage | 15.02.21 - 1:40 p.m. | #

I taught the new system- with new pence - in my first teaching practice in June 1970. Very well prepared.

Cornish Monkey | 15.02.21 - 2:52 p.m. | #

My grandfather once told me that back his day LSD stood for pounds, shillings and pence, and a good trip was when the family went to Clacton for the day to ride the donkeys.

klauswaugh | 15.02.21 - 2:55 p.m. | #

It took us 10 year olds no time to figure out that instead of buying a 6d bag of sweets for 2.5p, we could get a 3d bag twice for only 2p.

kev | 15.02.21 - 4:14 p.m. | #

I tend to think our having five fingers as an example of why intelligent design didn’t happen, or at the very least God was not a mathematician. Base 12 works far better than base 10.

ROBERT Butlin | 15.02.21 - 5:10 p.m. | #

I remember the changeover in 1971. Hated it at the time. Still have a couple of the blue commemorative packets of the "new" coins, not to mention a small stash of the old coinage, including a sixpence that has been put in the shoe of all family brides (for luck) for the past half century...even though in US. Tradition.

Mary | 15.02.21 - 7:19 p.m. | #

I remember D-day in 1971 - my Grandad was quite put out by the changeover, but eventually adapted. For a long time he would have to convert back to old money to get a sense of whether a price was good value or not.

The thing I noticed most was that paperback book prices were printed on the book in both old and new systems. I wondered if this was partly to help people like my Grandad. I later realised that books had a shelf life that spanned either side of the big day itself.

I haven't spent any cash since the start of Lockdown One. I've taken the coins out of my pocket but I still walk around with notes, just in case.

JonathanC | 15.02.21 - 8:02 p.m. | #

one other benefit of the pre-decimal currency that should be be brought back; the coins provided a reminder of British history, with names and pictures of several generations of monarchs. It was still possible to find a penny with the head of Queen Victoria.

amber | 16.02.21 - 5:31 a.m. | #

even as a child of the 80s I was used to seeing old monarchs in change as a child - old shillings and florins were still legal tender until they were replaced with the smaller sized 5ps and 10ps in the early 90s.

martin | 16.02.21 - 8:12 a.m. | #

Amber's point about 'a reminder of British history' is a good one. The small bag of pre-decimal coinage that I mentioned above contained coins with the heads of five different monarchs on: Elizabeth II, George VI, George V, Edward VII and Victoria (oldest coin dated 1884). Unfortunately, nothing bearing the profile of Edward VIII.

Alan S | 16.02.21 - 8:37 a.m. | #

"A reminder of British history" indeed.
I can remember the pleasure I got from finding a "Bun Penny" in the change from my 6d pocket money. A Bun Penny was one bearing the head of the young Queen Victoria whose hair was dressed in a bun, hence the term. Such pennies were invariably heavily worn and I always wondered how many people had touched them.

Baldrick | 16.02.21 - 9:56 a.m. | #

My parents/grandparents kept a bag of the old coins which I used to play with as a child, so I remember the actual coins themselves very well - if not actually using them in everyday life.
Most of all I liked looking at the dates on them and sorting them by decade etc. If I remember correctly the oldest Bun Penny in the collection was from the early 1850s.

When I'm allowed back into my parent's house again, I'll have to go rummaging!

Cornish Cockney | 16.02.21 - 10:34 a.m. | #

I'm too young to have used them (I was a sickly baby and though born before D Day, didn't get out of hospital until after) but I inherited a bag of coins from my grandad, and there are George III pennies and ha'pennies in there - but only one with a clear bust and a date (1799), the others are so worn.

mark addy | 16.02.21 - 12:17 p.m. | #

It's bad isn't it, that with the current set of 'chums' in power I could see this happening, and it wouldn't be a shock.

R2 | 16.02.21 - 1:44 p.m. | #

Splendid, not a moment too soon. I look forward to the new half crown, but may I also make a plea for retention of my least unfavourite of the impostor coins, the 4/- piece? The 6d and both the 3d bits would be nice as well for variety and idiosyncracy.

Strabismus | 16.02.21 - 3:28 p.m. | #

I prefer the decimal currency and would have been even happier if we had Euros and Cents

John | 16.02.21 - 5:06 p.m. | #

Typical third form maths class problem in my 1950s primary school:

"Jane went shopping and bought 11 ounces of butter at 1/4d a pound, and 7 eggs at a penny three farthings each. How much did she spend and what change would she have received from a half crown ?"

Master that, and most arithmetic problems these days are a doddle.

And further - why no mention of crowns ?

dg writes: The post mentions crowns.

Simon | 17.02.21 - 10:21 p.m. | #

It took me a long while to stop mentally converting new P to £sd, although at least it was easier with there still being the £ as a base, whether in new or old.

I still, however, often mentally convert metric measurements and weight into imperial.

Somewhere, I have two rolls of the new 1/2p coins that I got from the bank the week before decimilisation came in. I think each paper wrapped roll holds 50 coins - 50p each roll. Although I also got rolls of the 1p and 2p coins as well, I decided that it was too much money just to keep and ended up spending them all when times got hard!

rogmi | 19.02.21 - 1:44 p.m. | #











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