.
It doesn’t seem all that long ago that in order to get cash one had to queue up in the bank and present a cheque made out to ‘Cash’.
This was how we did it in the early 60s when I started work and I remember those tedious lunchtime bank queues every week and the superior looks of the bank clerks as, in the days before computers, they checked your hardcopy account to see whether there was enough in it to fund your request. These were, it has to be said, the times when a fiver would keep a young, single man going for a week.
Those were the days when everything was done on a cash basis. Credit cards had not yet been invented and so whatever you did, barring the more expensive purchases which could be done by cheque by those with bank accounts, had to be done in cash.
They were the days also that the government imposed strict controls on taking sterling abroad. You were limited to just £25 per person, whatever the length of your trip, and if you wanted more than that you had to get yourself some foreign currency or take a chance on not getting caught with more in your wallet. Happily, those were also the days when, for a young married couple, £50 was enough to fund the expenses of a fortnight’s holiday.
There was one year when my wife and I took a two-week break in Italy with my brother- and sister-in-law and had a super time visiting all the sites around Rome and Sorrento. Food and wine cost very little and with a double currency allowance - which was noted in the back of our passports by the bank - we lived like royalty. However, the reckoning came when we had to pay our final hotel bar bill and discovered that we didn’t have enough cash between us to settle it.
There was only one thing for it, and that was to telephone the bank and ask them to telegraph me £20 care of the hotel and, after some anxious waiting, it arrived in time for us to settle the bill and have a few pounds over for the last couple of days.
As the years have passed, we’ve quite forgotten just how important cash in one’s wallet used to be and, without it, you could often come to a temporary and embarrassing standstill. These days we’ve almost become a cashless society. Indeed, so far have we come since the 60s that some banks have imposed a minimum of £300 on over-the-counter cash withdrawals and some organisations have even banned the use of cheques in favour of credit card transactions. In another development, Barclaycard may next year trial a wristband containing a microchip that can be preloaded with credit to be used by those attending music and other festivals, thus eliminating the risk of fraud and theft.
So it is interesting - for the older generation at any rate - to reflect on the importance that cash used to have and the tedious queues that used to be involved in getting it.
All that changed on this day in 1967 when the first ATM machine to be installed in this country was put into use by Barclays Bank and first used in a blaze of publicity by Reg Varney. After that day, bank queues and officious clerks faded out - at least for getting small amounts of cash.
These days our only problem is whether the ATM machine we are using has been ‘doctored’ by crooks or whether we will get mugged when using it!
.
It doesn’t seem all that long ago that in order to get cash one had to queue up in the bank and present a cheque made out to ‘Cash’.
This was how we did it in the early 60s when I started work and I remember those tedious lunchtime bank queues every week and the superior looks of the bank clerks as, in the days before computers, they checked your hardcopy account to see whether there was enough in it to fund your request. These were, it has to be said, the times when a fiver would keep a young, single man going for a week.
Those were the days when everything was done on a cash basis. Credit cards had not yet been invented and so whatever you did, barring the more expensive purchases which could be done by cheque by those with bank accounts, had to be done in cash.
They were the days also that the government imposed strict controls on taking sterling abroad. You were limited to just £25 per person, whatever the length of your trip, and if you wanted more than that you had to get yourself some foreign currency or take a chance on not getting caught with more in your wallet. Happily, those were also the days when, for a young married couple, £50 was enough to fund the expenses of a fortnight’s holiday.
There was one year when my wife and I took a two-week break in Italy with my brother- and sister-in-law and had a super time visiting all the sites around Rome and Sorrento. Food and wine cost very little and with a double currency allowance - which was noted in the back of our passports by the bank - we lived like royalty. However, the reckoning came when we had to pay our final hotel bar bill and discovered that we didn’t have enough cash between us to settle it.
There was only one thing for it, and that was to telephone the bank and ask them to telegraph me £20 care of the hotel and, after some anxious waiting, it arrived in time for us to settle the bill and have a few pounds over for the last couple of days.
As the years have passed, we’ve quite forgotten just how important cash in one’s wallet used to be and, without it, you could often come to a temporary and embarrassing standstill. These days we’ve almost become a cashless society. Indeed, so far have we come since the 60s that some banks have imposed a minimum of £300 on over-the-counter cash withdrawals and some organisations have even banned the use of cheques in favour of credit card transactions. In another development, Barclaycard may next year trial a wristband containing a microchip that can be preloaded with credit to be used by those attending music and other festivals, thus eliminating the risk of fraud and theft.
So it is interesting - for the older generation at any rate - to reflect on the importance that cash used to have and the tedious queues that used to be involved in getting it.
All that changed on this day in 1967 when the first ATM machine to be installed in this country was put into use by Barclays Bank and first used in a blaze of publicity by Reg Varney. After that day, bank queues and officious clerks faded out - at least for getting small amounts of cash.
These days our only problem is whether the ATM machine we are using has been ‘doctored’ by crooks or whether we will get mugged when using it!
.
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