30 JULY 1994, Page 23

Norman conquest

CELEBRATED assiduously for most of this year, the Bank of England's 300th birthday has finally caught up with us. My present is Geoffrey Madan's account of Governor Montagu Norman arriving at Bank station on the Central Line: 'Soon he strode on and mounted the escalator, alone, like the bridge of a ship, striking a glorious pose — portrait of an admiral in China seas. I thought of the old Treasury saying, that the Bank of England acts like a commander in the days before strategy was thought of.'