Before my grandmother moved to Ireland in 2003, she left me my late grandfather's old collection of coins from his travels as a young man in the Navy. There are coins from all manner of countries, in foreign currencies some of which I have never heard of, but one of the oldest and most interesting in the collection has to be the silver half crown with Queen Victoria's portrait on it. Its high silver content is shewn by its state, which is quite worn. My father was 14 years old when the British Pound was "decimalised" and half crowns discontinued so I have never used the old coins (but I do remember heavier 50p coins), but holding this half crown with the Widow of Windsor's countenance thereon, which was legal tender until 1967 (I think), gives one a sense of history which modern money, even when it is used at all, simply does not. Peter Hitchens has written an interesting article on his blog about the old money which reminded me of granddad's old collection.
All I can ever get out of my parents about the old money is that sweets were cheaper. I have no memory of the old money; "D Day" was 17 years before I was born, but I have always measured in inches, feet and yards. Another way to stave off the dark tide!
Don't give an inch. Insist on Imperial!
ReplyDeleteI was in the very last generation learning the old money sums at school until I was 12 in 1971. We are in trouble if we got a sum wrong on the basis of 10 pence (d) in a shilling and not 12. We had fun, and then we were told we were going decimal, just as we were beginning to get the old sums right!
One reason I use Imperial measurements is because my parents still do but also because Tolkien did (naturally). I first encountered leagues and fathoms in Tolkien. Older people are surprised that someone of my generation would do thus but I think it's terribly important. At any rate, I find it easier by far to measure in inches, feet, yards, miles, leagues, pints, gallons, pounds, ounces, &c than the metric stuff.
DeleteInterestingly, my father says that he wouldn't mind seeing a return of the old money!
The Imperial measures are far more sensible of course, e.g. the foot can be divided by 2, 3, 4 and 6. Having grown up with them I can estimate in feet, inches and yards, pounds and pints but not in the metric system.
ReplyDeleteI am a (slightly) later vintage than Fr. Anthony but I too remember doing sums with pounds, shillings and pence and being tested every Friday morning at primary school on currency sums and other maths problems.
When I was at school, one of my classmates and I were drafting a letter to our "pen pals" in France and coming up with subject matter, and one of the things was the distance our houses were from the school. I said "about two miles," at which he was quite surprised and asked how I knew, and I said that I didn't only that it was an educated guess based on several factors. If you asked me the distance from here to Charing Cross in kilometres (pronounced "KIL-o-mee-terz) I wouldn't be able to say.
DeleteI'm glad we still have our road signs in miles in the UK. It isn't so on the continent!