It is pretty hard now to remember that there was a time before contactless payments, cash dispensers, and indeed that plastic card which guarantees you can pay for the food shop in the supermarket, buy a bus ticket or get a round in at the pub.
But there was, which meant you were reliant on the cash in your pocket.
Of course, for anyone born before 1970 that is a given, but for me it remains a mark of just how far we have travelled in a few decades.
I rarely carry cash when out, secure in the knowledge that pretty much everything I might want can be sourced through plastic.
But as a 16-year-old in 1966, I kept a 10-shilling note in the back of my wallet which was the fall back plan.
In Eltham, Woolwich and Greenwich that was never a problem, because the bus was cheap and anyway the sensible and cheap solution would be to walk home, leaving the 10-bob insurance plan for a real emergency.
That said, I never needed the plan, and finally chose to spend it on a day in early 1971, prompted I suppose by the imminent arrival of Decimal Day.
On one level it’s not much of a story, but it’s a pointer to how things were different.
And in the same way I still wonder what we did before mobiles, because back then there would be that moment when out in town one of us would opt to go off for an hour.
Today, we are just a phone call away.
But back then we must have had to agree on where and when to meet up, and woe betide you if you were late.
The obvious choice would be the entrance to the Church or the Library, but for reasons I never quite knew, we often fastened on the Electricity Board show rooms, or the record store of the Co-op.
The later I fully understand, but the show rooms remain a mystery, although we did also favour the upstairs restaurant which I think was a Maypole or Liptons.
And here is the cruel disappointment, because I went looking for both the show rooms and the restaurant and failed dismally to find them. Where once you could pay your bills, take in the latest set of white goods, dinners can choose from a range of Italian dishes.
As for the Maypole/Liptons I am at a loss, thinking it may have been upstairs in that building beside David Grieg which is now Iceland.
Not that it matters over much, because I doubt my ten bob would buy a lot on the High Street these days.
Infarct, even the humble Mars Bar, which was treat I often bought on the way home at the sweet shop beside the Odeon, would today be beyond my 10-bob note.
All of which leaves me to acknowledge that I have substituted a £ note for my ten bob, simply because looking through the collection there are no ten-shilling notes, only this green one, so that will have to do.
Location; Eltham
Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Liz and Colin Fitzpatrick
Of course, for anyone born before 1970 that is a given, but for me it remains a mark of just how far we have travelled in a few decades.
I rarely carry cash when out, secure in the knowledge that pretty much everything I might want can be sourced through plastic.
In Eltham, Woolwich and Greenwich that was never a problem, because the bus was cheap and anyway the sensible and cheap solution would be to walk home, leaving the 10-bob insurance plan for a real emergency.
That said, I never needed the plan, and finally chose to spend it on a day in early 1971, prompted I suppose by the imminent arrival of Decimal Day.
On one level it’s not much of a story, but it’s a pointer to how things were different.
And in the same way I still wonder what we did before mobiles, because back then there would be that moment when out in town one of us would opt to go off for an hour.
Today, we are just a phone call away.
The obvious choice would be the entrance to the Church or the Library, but for reasons I never quite knew, we often fastened on the Electricity Board show rooms, or the record store of the Co-op.
The later I fully understand, but the show rooms remain a mystery, although we did also favour the upstairs restaurant which I think was a Maypole or Liptons.
And here is the cruel disappointment, because I went looking for both the show rooms and the restaurant and failed dismally to find them. Where once you could pay your bills, take in the latest set of white goods, dinners can choose from a range of Italian dishes.
As for the Maypole/Liptons I am at a loss, thinking it may have been upstairs in that building beside David Grieg which is now Iceland.
Not that it matters over much, because I doubt my ten bob would buy a lot on the High Street these days.
Infarct, even the humble Mars Bar, which was treat I often bought on the way home at the sweet shop beside the Odeon, would today be beyond my 10-bob note.
All of which leaves me to acknowledge that I have substituted a £ note for my ten bob, simply because looking through the collection there are no ten-shilling notes, only this green one, so that will have to do.
Location; Eltham
Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Liz and Colin Fitzpatrick
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