CONTACTLESS: LA CREME DE LA CREAM WHEN IT COMES TO SMALL PAYMENTS IN BRIGG

Brigg Blog is pleased to see plenty of people visiting Blyton Ice Cream's new shop, on Wrawby Street, having recently took over from Cups & Cones at the converted former fire station.
We had to smile when reading a sign in the window informing customers that contactless* payments are accepted.  That's a sign of modern trends but a far cry from the early 1960s.
Back in the 1960s, children living in the prefabs on Woodbine Grove who heard the Sargent's ice cream van ringing its handbell dashed out to request a threepenny cornet.
That's one-and-a-half pence in 'new money' - decimalisation not taking place until the early 1970s, heralding 'new pence'  and the use of 'p' rather than 'd' to  indicate pence.
* Contactless payments are where you place your bank card on a terminal device on the shop counter, and can be used to buy items costing less than £30. As we understand it, your bank transfers the money to the business a few days later. Mobile 'smartphones' can also be used if you go contactless - a method that seems increasingly popular with young folk in Brigg and disrict.
Use of the scowling face of Sir Winston Churchill in the image above should not be taken to mean that we disapprove of cash-free methods of payment, despite the fact that we still prefer to use cash.

 

Blyton Ice Cream's premises in Brigg.