Ian McMillan: I’d play a different tune on a financial instrument

We only had a vague idea of what went on in banks, so the game went something like this: Geoff would make a sign out of one of those bits of cardboard you got in a new shirt. The sign would say “Bank of Darfield” in bright pink crayon.

Geoff would sit at our kitchen table with some money we’d made out of bits of paper cut up jaggedly with bacon scissors.

They were simple notes, not like real, elaborate ones; there was no complex design, no watermarks, and the picture of The Queen was approximate. They said One Darfield Pound on them, or Five Darfield Pounds, or Ten Darfield Pounds.

Geoff was a bit more literal and sensible than me so he vetoed my idea for an eleven pound note. I guess that’s why he was wearing a home made sign that said “Manager” and I was the customer with no badge. I would come in to the bank from the street, which meant I walked in from our kitchen where my mam was peeling potatoes.

“Hello,” I would say in what I thought was a posh voice because we assumed only posh people went to banks.

“Hello,” Geoff would say, in a posh voice.

I realise this isn’t the most riveting game ever, kids.

There would be a pause during which we could hear Mrs Page next door singing chapel hymns in a wavering contralto. Then I’d say “I would like ten Darfield pounds please” and Geoff would say “Of course” and give me a Ten Darfield Pound Note and then he’d slip me a One Darfield Pound note with a wink. “What’s this?” I’d say, pretending to be amazed.

“Interest!” he’d reply, triumphantly, so I’d get my 11 pounds after all.

We played the game over and over again with variations like Geoff refusing to give any money or sometimes giving me far more money than I’d asked for.

Eventually we got fed up and made aeroplanes out of the notes and chucked them around the house until one fell in the fire and went up in flames and my mam came and chased us into the garden, brandishing her tatie peeler like a baton.

And that, to this day, is all I know about the banking system. And to be honest I think it’s all anyone knows; even the experts and the bankers are as clever and me and Geoff were.

Look at what’s been happening in the last few weeks: you could boil it down to one of our games. Somebody goes into a bank and asks for some money.

Sometimes the banker gives them what they want and sometimes they give them far too much or not enough or nothing at all and eventually it all catches fire and people get chased away by other people wielding tatie peelers. Well, batons. All that’s different is that Mrs Page’s singing is replaced by sirens.

Me and Geoff’s interest in financial matters was sparked by the school bank at Low Valley Juniors. Once a week we’d take some money in, I have a memory of it being a shilling, and a man from what was then called the Yorkshire Penny Bank would put it in a money bag and write the amount down in a blue book.

At the end of a few months the interest would be written in, and a tiny amount would be magically added to the dosh.

“Money earns money!” my dad would say in his Scots accent, and I’d wonder aloud what to do with the three old pence that had accrued. Three penny chews, I decided, or a proportion of a Matchbox Austin. Perhaps half a chassis.

So, the question is, when did the banks lose their innocence? Did they ever have any? Why is the whole world tottering because a few speculators on stock markets are buying and selling and selling and buying?

I’m not daft but I really struggle to understand what’s going on and I know I’m not the only one. It’s the language I can’t grasp, never mind the figures.

Somebody talked about a ‘financial instrument’ the other day. How do you play one of those? Somebody else mentioned “buying futures”’; who buys them? Doctor Who?

People refer to “monies” when they mean “money” and they talk about the markets “hating uncertainty” as though the markets are some sort of living thing, like an insect or a fish.

And in the end we’re all going to suffer. People who are just about to retire will have lost a vast slab of their pensions. Jobs will be lost. Shops will shut. People will hang around on street corners like they do in every slump. It’s not a good prospect.

So let me organise the banks. I’ll sort it all out. And I’ll start with the eleven pound note. That’s what I call a financial instrument!