. . . and four-shilling hero
THE man who got it right was John de Loynes of the Bank of England. While his colleagues were busily making our curren- cy decimal, he was advising The Gambia to set up its currency on a unit of four shillings. This caused deep umbrage in the Bank, where he was accused of letting down the party line — and his explanations only made the umbrage deeper. He said that this was the unit that the Gambians were used to. The new four-shilling coin had two crocodiles chasing each other round the circumference, and he thought that the Gambians would enjoy betting on which crocodile was catching the other up. Lastly and decisively, inflation was decima- lising the world's currencies quite fast enough — no need for a decimal peso or lira — without central bankers intervening to make matters worse. I would have wished to mark this anniversary by striking a double-florin (4s) piece in his memory. Two of them would buy you a morning paper.
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