Читать книгу Class of '79 - Chris Rooke - Страница 20

You need to be aware that in those dark days, cash was an essential means of paying for goods and services, but that actually getting cash out of the bank was very difficult. For starters, there was no such thing as a debit card; you paid cash, or cheque, or nothing. The only type of cards that were available were credit cards, and these were very new, and only those with limitless reserves of dosh were allowed to have them, and even then many places weren’t geared up to accept them.

Those establishments that did accept credit cards didn’t have electronic consoles, but instead rudimentary carbon paper copying machines that physically printed your card details onto paper, by sliding a printing block over it, with carbon paper creating a customer receipt. Debit cards were yet to be invented, and contactless was literally something from Science Fiction (I remember reading about it around that time, in a Philip K. Dick novel, and wondered if such an amazing idea would ever become reality).

People did have a bank card, but it was just a ‘cheque guarantee card’, that you had to present when you wrote a cheque, and guaranteed that the cheque would be honoured by the bank. There were no such things as cash machines, no nipping down to the local hole-in-the-wall for a few notes, and of course no cash back offered in shops, since you were paying in cash in the first place! Since you couldn’t really pay by cheque or credit card for most everyday items, like food or beer or public transport etc. you had to pay by cash, but where did you get your cash from, if not from cash machines?

The only place to get cash from was your bank – and not from the non-existent cash machine, but from the teller inside. You joined an endless queue, finally got to the one window of four that was actually open, wrote them a cheque (!) and finally got some cash. Even that was difficult, as banks weren’t open during normal hours, as they had their own opening hours of 10.00am – 4.00pm Monday to Friday, and they were shut all day Saturday and Sunday.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that it was often hard getting to the bank, and if you ran out of cash on a Friday or Saturday night (as happened frequently), then you really were stuffed, and borrowing (sponging) from a friend or acquaintance was your only option.

A year or so after I started at Portsmouth, Nat West Bank excitedly announced the arrival of the first ever cash machines to be available in the UK - but they were most definitely not cash machines as we know them today! Customers (myself included) were sent a separate cash card which was a thin, flimsy piece of plastic with holes punched out of it (rather like the holes in Pianola sheet music) which were read by the computer in the cash machine.

The cash card was for emergency use only and worked as follows: you went to the one and only cash machine in Portsmouth that had just been installed (outside the main branch on the High St) and inserted your card. The machine would then dispense one £10 note (no other options available) which was your emergency cash. That was it, a tenner - and be thankful! Not only that, but the machine would then keep your card! Your card was then returned to you a few days later in the post (!!) This system was touted as the best thing since sliced bread!

So, if anyone wants to start moaning about how far away the nearest cash machine is or whatever, just remember how bad it used to be. By ‘eck, we had it tough in them days!