It was fifty years ago today (well, yesterday)

Yes I remember this was a pre-cursor to joining the Common Market, I went to the village hall for a talk by Enoch Powell.

My Dad moved here in 1963. My Mum remembers him learning about Lsd and remarking "That won't last long" :)

Not teaching, I was a university student, but I remember that then first thing I bought with the new money was 6 faggots from our local butcher, in Quorn, Leicestershire, for me and my two housemates.

I remember D-day (I was more a pupil than a teacher in '72,[only born in '62]). The thing I remember most wasn't the faff with 'Dinner money' (was on free meals so any monetary changes passed me by) it was more the jingle that seemed to be everywhere :- "use your old pennies in sixpenny lots" as six old pennies were equivalent to 2 1/2 pence

Aside :- I remember 5p could get me a third of a pint of milk (Thanks for making us pay for this often gawping stuff[1][2] Maggie) and a packet of Tudor crisps ( 2 1/2P ).

For a few years after my old pennies went into a model railway in the window of a local toyshop. They had a slot mounted through the glass so it could be run outside shop hours. 1d=1minute IIRC.

Of course, unlike later bits of shopping metrication which were bitterly contested, it could have been of no interest whatever to the Common Market what we divided our Pounds into. But I remember it being sold as a pro-European move, as I remember Powell, ever the opportunist, opposing it on the same grounds.

Couldn't the refund have been to the nearest 0.5p?

The problem is, rightly or wrongly, almost every other country in the world uses decimal money.

Well I don't recall the details but the press and tv were full of these oddities at the time and of course everyone thought that all the shops were deliberately rounding up prices they had already adjusted beforehand to make the maximum profit. Who says conspiracy theory and fake news is something new?

Brian

Don't remember a fiasco because at our school we paid daily; there was no weekly option that I can recall - if we'd turned up on a Monday with a week's worth of dinner money it would have been forcibly removed seconds after entering the school gates. I don't remember learning with plastic coins.

I do remember the teacher urging us to bring in a 2 shilling (or 10 pence) coin so that she could give us change in the form of a 1 new pence coin.

I've just realised it's ~12 months since I handled any coins...

....but as Enoch Powell predicted the Common Market was a smoke screen for a federal europe with a common currency.

But you couldn't give every kid a calculator if we had kept LSD?

And he was wrong about that too, as with so much else?

Thanks for reminding us so many anti EU types are arch racists.

It may have been a smokescreen to him. It wasn't particularly well hidden to people who were awake at the time. Like my Dad, for example.

I can't recall the currency change being traumatic.

But I do recall starting school and teachers being in a flap having to teach metric (our first year in school was the first year to start from scratch in metric).

Mind you, I also recall being taught the 24 hour clock over a few lessons too, and I already knew that as well as metric.

One of the disadvantages of having an Eyetie (as some teachers said) father.

I've more time for Enoch than I have for anyone that quotes him. Much like the Bible they're not really understanding.

I can never follow your logic. You seem to jump from one concept to another as if there's causation when there isn't. It makes my head spin.

Bill

Someone on high said No. I don't know why.

Bill

At that time I was a London Bus Conductor. LT were well-prepared for the event - not so the public. Plenty of arguments about the correct conversion rate with passengers. Do you remember the clock-face approach to converting?

In the long-term though, it meant less weight in my jacket pockets - but the significant diminution of a particularly sweet revenge.

When a smartarse offered a pound note in payment of a twopenny fare, note taken, £1 bag of old coinage taken out of jacket pocket, two pennies extracted, remainder poured into the smartarse's lap.

Never as good with decimal currency...;)

PA