Saving the copper ........ a 5/- bag from sometime in the 1940s

Saving the copper, date unknown

Now there will be those who mutter this is not really much to do with history.

But there I would disagree, because it is one of those small everyday objects which are so part of our lives that we give them no significance.

I came across this one in a collection of material from my dad.

It is a paper money bag for the National Provincial Bank and would have been used to bag pennies, halfpenny and farthings.

Now I don’t have a date but it will be before 1971 when we went decimal and adopted a new set of coins junking the old pounds shillings and pence.

Before 1971 the pound was made up of 240 pennies with 12 pennies making a shilling and 20 shillings making a pound.

All very bewildering for any one born after 1971 but pretty clear to me and those who can also remember Five Boys chocolate bars,  drinking Kia-Ora orange at the pictures, and Rin Tin Tin.

The National Provincial Bank had a long history starting up in 1833 before becoming the National Westminster Bank in 1970.

All of which gives little clue to a date for the bag except for the request “IN VIEW OF THE APPEALS MADE FOR THE ECONOMY OF PAPER WILL CUSTOMERS KINDLY RETURN ALL THESE BAGS TO THE BANK FOR RE-USE.”

Hotel Regina, Venice, circa 1950s

Of course such appeals I guess have come at regular intervals but I suspect this may date the bag to the Second World War or the years directly afterwards.

Now given the sort of chap my dad was it would not surprise me that this money bag had been sitting amongst his stuff from that time, before coming north to us.

It had been used to hold a series of hotel suitcase labels from the 1950s and these too in the fullness of time will come out to feature as stories for the blog.

In the meantime my 70 year old money bag will return to its place of safe storage, and I shall go rummaging for some pennies, and haipeni’s and may even turn up the odd three penny bit and sixpence.

And who knows may well come across more stories of the trivial kind.

Pictures; money bag, date unknown and hotel suitcase label, circa 1950s,  from the collection of Andrew Simpson

So was that Luxembourg? ............... holidays by hotel labels in the 1950s

Now I don’t even know if hotels still give away suitcase labels.

If they don’t that is a shame because I am sitting beside some of the ones my dad collected in his years as a coach driver and they are fascinating

Not that he ever stuck them on his suit cases, he just brought them home which may have been an earlier version of the tourist habit of collecting the soap and shampoo from the bathroom.

He was at the luxury end of the motor holiday trade and his passengers would whisked on a seven, nine or fifteen day tour of mainland Europe from the Benelux countries as far as the Swiss Alps and the Italian Lakes.

They would be fed and accommodated at good hotels, provided with a first class guide and had time off to wander as they wished.

But it was a fairly rigid timetable which has often prompted me to think if you dozed off or looked away long enough from the window you might well have missed an entire country.

It is not my idea of a holiday but was so successful that it kept Glenton Tours going from the 1920s well past the time Dad retired in 1982.

That said it was still a wonderful way of seeing new places allowing you to get a sense of what  made each country and town along the way that little bit different.

Today most of us just get on a plane and with in a couple of hours have arrived at the destination,  having spent the entire journey ordering a drink, wrestling with a packet of peanuts and pondering on what to buy from "the onboard offers."

Only after the bags have been collected and passport control completed do you get a sense of where you are which even then may be some what muted by the long wait for the holiday tour bus to fill up and set off.

All of which makes me think that the fifteen day coach holiday to the Italian Lakes, taking in a bit of France, lots of Luxembourg and Bellgium and northrn Italy has some merit.

And so for no other reason than I haven’t looked at these labels for half a century I shall post a few a week, and in the fullness of time will go looking for each of the hotels.

Pictures; hotel labels from the 1950s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

If its Tuesday it is Lake Garda ........ travelling by hotel labels in the 1950s ..... part 1

Now I don’t even know if hotels still give away suitcase labels.

If they don’t that is a shame because I am sitting beside some of the ones my dad collected in his years as a coach driver and they are fascinating

Not that he ever stuck them on his suit cases, he just brought them home which may have been an earlier version of the tourist habit of collecting the soap and shampoo from the bathroom.

He was at the luxury end of the motor holiday trade and his passengers would be whisked on a seven, nine or fifteen day tour of mainland Europe from the Benelux countries as far as the Swiss Alps and the Italian Lakes.

They would be fed and accommodated at good hotels, provided with a first class guide and had time off to wander as they wished.

But it was a fairly rigid timetable which has often prompted me to think that if you dozed off or looked away long enough from the window you might well have missed an entire country.

It is not my idea of a holiday but was so successful that it kept Glenton Tours going from the 1920s well past the time Dad retired in 1982.

That said it was still a wonderful way of seeing new places allowing you to get a sense of what  made each country and town along the way that little bit different.

Today most of us just get on a plane and with in a couple of hours have arrived at the destination,  having spent the entire journey ordering a drink, wrestling with a packet of peanuts and pondering on what to buy from "the onboard offers."

Only after the bags have been collected and passport control completed do you get a sense of where you are which even then may be some what muted by the long wait for the holiday tour bus to fill up and set off.

All of which makes me think that the fifteen day coach holiday to the Italian Lakes, taking in a bit of France, lots of Luxembourg and Bellgium and northrn Italy has some merit.

And so for no other reason than I haven’t looked at these labels for half a century I shall post a few a week, and in the fullness of time will go looking for each of the hotels.

Pictures; hotel labels from the 1950s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Hotel labels and holiday badges ......... how we show off where we go

Now I have been following my dad around Europe in the 1950s using the hotel suitcase labels that he collected.

They are fascinating little bits of our history and I shall close with one last one which was from Austria.

And I am minded to go looking for the hotels themselves.

But that will be for another time.

In the meantime I shall move a few decades forward and close with a series of holiday badges from the collection of Stephen Marland and in time no doubt explore these in more detail.

The badge has been around a long time but with with the arrival of those fairly inexpensive badge making machines almost any one can knock out a shed load on almost anything, from the closure of the local pet shop  to a birthday and of course a souvenir of a day by the sea.

So I shall leave you to scrutinize Stephen's collection and perhaps offer up some of your own for the blog.



Pictures; suitcase label Austria circa 1955, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and holiday  badges  courtesy of Stephen Marland