Nasty new money
The ten shilling piece apart, I do not like the new money and I have yet to meet any- one who does. My own difficulty, shared by several friends, is occasioned particularly by the florin, the old two shillings which has now become 10p. When I am asked for, say, 35p, I find myself instinctively handing over two old florins, two two shilling pieces that is, thinking that they must come to 40p. People serving me give me nasty looks and I realise that I have got it wrong again. Also, the new ip is an irritating and useless little tiddler. It 'occurs frequently to me that there is little point in having a coin whose value is so small that there is nothing you can buy with it and whose size is so small that there is nothing you can do with it. The minting of the p is a gross extravagance. I suspect soon we shall be doing without the I p also, money going the way it is, and we will then be left with the new 2p. This coin is quite useful; but we really must get shot of the old sixpence, and I have my doubts about the longevity of the old shilling. The Post Office seems to have similar doubts—it's either a new 2p or a florin for a telephone call in a coin-box : a very great improvement.
But, all in all, the old system was fine. We all understood it. It possessed an almost infinite variability and flexibility. Now we are dragooned by decimals, and nobody really wanted them. It is odd the way things happen. Our members of parliament have let us down.
Previous page
