Sunday, November 01, 2015

BRIGG CHEQUES AND BALANCES

They've installed a new machine in the Lloyds Bank branch in Brigg town centre.
You feed the cheques through a slot and the machine presents you with a digital representation of what's you've just fed in, then lists the various amounts and the grand total. 
You press a button to confirm you're happy with the numbers and a receipt appears. Very impressive! A helpful assistant kindly demonstrated how it works - one-to-one tuition. 
The aim is to remove some people from the queue waiting for counter service. Particularly handy at busy times of the week like market day.
But the best thing about this is suggests the banking world is NOT planning to phase out the dear old cheque any time soon.
If they were, there would be no investment in machines like the new one in Wrawby Street.
That's very good news for those of us of more senior years who have grown up with cheques.
The young generation, of course, likes to hold up others queuing at checkouts in Brigg shops by using one of those new-fangled cards to pay for a few sweets.
We hear you can also use a device (IPhone?) and just point it at something on the checkout to pay for your purchases.
Back in the dinosaur era, we queued well down Grammar School Road, waiting to hand over sixpence for a bag of crisps inside Jack Clark's tuck-shop - long before Decimalisation Day.
Anyone who held up the queue in those days could expect to go through the pain barrier -"summary justice" to use a legal term popular at the time.


1 comment:

Ken Harrison said...

Blinking expensive packet of crisps, Nige.
I recall a packet cost about 3d to 4d in the 60's.
(3d just over 1p)
The early 60's was the time when the first flavoured crisps (cheese and onion) became popular.....and the other crisp revolution at the time was the introduction of the ready-salted crisps.
Smiths were still selling packets with little blue bags of salt.
The process was to open the bag; search for the blue bag; shake the salt onto the crisps - then shake the bag....That was ok, if one could find the blue bag...at times it was nowhere to be seen and only discovered when one had a mouthful of salt and a chewed blue wrapper.
A bottle of pop and a bag of crisps was the usual bribe for us kids waiting outside a country pub while the grown-ups downed a few pints at the bar!
Another bottle of pop and crisps meant we wouldn't moan for the next hour....we were easily bribed in those days....