Why I still want brass in my pocket and for cash to reign supreme - Christa Ackroyd

Dad even had alternative words for wages which all my family now use in his honour - remuneration or recompense. Bless him. To boast about how much you have when so many have so little is the definition of crassness. But sorry dad this week I am going to talk cold hard cash. Pounds shilling and pence, in real money. Not what we have, not how much something cost but the fact that for years now everyone has been saying it will soon be a thing of the past. And it is certainly confusing world out there when you try and purchase something.

While there are still some businesses that very firmly only take cash others only take credit cards. So much so you never know what to take with you where. But one thing I am firmly with the government and the Bank of England on, we must never lose real money for so many reasons. Yes it might be a pain to ‘cash up’ at the end of the day if you are in business and yes the banks may charge you to deposit that which you have earned, but the world would be a far less caring sort of a world without it.

The sixpence given by my gran for helping her in the garden was always a wonderful gesture. I know now she saved every single silver coin given in change as a little token for each of her grandchildren, and even the neighbours kids especially in bob a job week (does that still exist ?) ‘Go into the pottery hen and take a sixpence,’ she would say. I still have her hen in pride of place in my kitchen and smile every time I see it remembering that sixpence was to spend hours at the local shop in front of the penny tray choosing between shrimps (two for a penny) liquorice sticks, fruit salads (four for a penny) or thin foil covered tiny bars of chocolates. The shopkeepers in my day needed the patience of a saint at the end of a school day. We also got sixpence from the tooth fairy, now I understand it’s a fiver ! If we needed bus fares we went to dad’s coin saucer at the side of his bed where he emptied his pockets every night. And on Sunday’s we all put money in the collection plate at church.

As we grew older we saved money in an old sweet jar and sorted it into plastic bags of pennies, shillings and sixpences if we were saving up for something special. My first Saturday job selling knickers on a market store was rewarded with eighteen shillings in a small brown envelope which seemed like an enormous amount considering Christmas was always a ten bob postal order from my other grandparents.

Yes I had a bank book but too often it was frittered away as soon as it got into my hands. Clothes, makeup whatever else I ‘needed’ because as mum reminded me I was earning now.

When I started as a journalist I always kept a five pound note, a toothbrush and a spare set of underwear in my glove compartment for emergencies. And I still panic if I don’t have at least one note and some loose change in my purse when I go into town even though many parking facilities are like everything else available on your phone.

Loose change is still for charity tins, or now my own grandchildren. Although apps, online banking, have meant there is certainly less down the back of the sofa than there used to be. But then it’s not for me that I worry. It is for those who use cash to budget, who draw out exactly what they can afford to each week. And when it’s gone it’s gone. Or let’s face it those who cannot remember a myriad of pin numbers or who simply are not up to keeping track of it all and yes I am always shocked when the monthly statement comes in at how much has gone out no matter how frugal I imagine I have been.

Mum and dad always taught me if you haven’t got it you can’t spend it. That was when you had to go to a bank to withdraw it. Not now. It is too easy to wrack up a credit card bill. As for pay day lenders don’t get me started. Now we don’t have friendly bank managers we can see face to face if we are getting into difficulties. And if the nation’s debt is rising so too is individual debt. It is too easy to spend and difficult to earn to keep up with rising costs and increasing bills.

In my mum’s day there was no alternative other than to keep a track of what she was spending. Dad was paid in cash and every amount no matter how small was entered into a little book. Grocery bills, petrol for a car that was saved for, and the only thing they ever borrowed money for, their mortgage were all written down.

Covid put paid to the need to carry cash. We bought things we didn’t need and shopped for food online. And some businesses decided that’s the way they wanted it to continue. Now the Bank of England has said they will actively monitor those businesses who would rather move towards becoming totally cash free after a commons select committee agreed that to do so would create a two tier system adversely affecting the vulnerable including those with learning difficulties, the elderly and those suffering from domestic violence.

I would go further as I know some have urged. I would legislate against it. We all have a different relationship with money. Take my two granddaughters. Holiday money, a tradition which I still engage with slips through the fingers of one child. She can’t wait to spend it. As my mum used to say to me it burns a hole in her pocket. The other hates to part with it. It almost pains her to do so which is why her bank account is almost healthier than mine. There is nothing more joyful than giving. I would always prefer to reward a waitress, a hairdresser, any service provider with a tip in cash according to the service given and hate it added into the bill as though it’s a god given right to receive. But it is the little things we would lose, the joy of giving in person a little something. And the worry that we have absolutely no idea whether we can afford to without logging on and checking in.

I think it was in Hamlet that the phrase ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be. For loan oft loses both itself and friend. And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.’ Sage words then and now. If cash is king. Then long live the king.