CITY AND SUBURBAN
The Barclays branch at Little Pottering reopens with a visit from Sir Topham Hatt
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
Ater the branch line, the branch bank. We say that we loved them but we gave up using them. Their only future now is in the hands of enthusiasts, who would club together to restore and run them as they were in the days of steel nibs and steam traction. My railway correspondent, I.K. Gricer, has been called in to advise a group of bank-spotters who want to reopen the Little Pottering branch of Barclays. They used to complain that Barclays was exploit- ing them, but now that it has given up, they mind even more. A terrible loss to the neighbourhood, they say. So from junk- yards and jumble sales, from dusty stock- rooms and from unsuccessful pub conver- sions, they have put the branch together — the counter, the inkwells, the big wooden calendar, even the customer's chair in the manager's office, complete with the spring sticking through it. All they still need is some cash, which they hope to borrow from Barclays. On the great day, those heavy doors will swing back and the Little Potter- ing branch will once again be open for busi- ness, or as open as bank branches ever were — bankers' hours, ten to three, Mondays to Fridays, bank holidays strictly observed. It will go like a train, they expect. I.K. Gricer has warned them not to think that they can reopen it as it was and make it pay for itself as once, perhaps, it did. This never worked with the railways, he said. If branch lines or branch banks were profitable they would still be open. To the preserved lines, suc- cess had come from marketing them not as highways but as destinations, complete with Thomas the Tank Engine specials. Little Pottering might achieve the same effect with visits from the Fat Director, Sir Topham Hatt, who is almost certain to be on the board of Barclays.
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