On February 14, 1971, you could get 240 pennies to the pound. The very next day it had changed to 100 new pence to the pound. Decimalisation had arrived, along with probably the most controversial inflationary period of the British monetary system. Before decimalisation we had been used to increases such as a penny on a gallon of petrol or a pint of beer, which we all moaned about. But now a new penny was worth 2.4 old pennies, so putting something up a penny sounded the same, but in fact it was more than double a previous penny increase. If in 1971 someone said you would be paying anything from 12/- to 18/- (what we're paying now) for a loaf of bread you would have thought he or she lived in fantasy land. But going back to that fateful day when decimalisation was introduced, the country waited with bated breath for the confusion. For the most part, though, according to the Chronicle, it was an anti-climax. "No problems," reported North East traders and shop assistants. Apparently, there was an atmosphere of almost war-time camaraderie as shoppers and staff helped each other work out the decimal change. "Things are going very smoothly, and by the weekend when trade is getting much brisker, the minor teething problems should be overcome," said a supermarket manager. Everywhere, however, there were grumbles that prices had edged upwards. By lunchtime complaints came pouring into the Chronicle offices of hefty increases in many cafés and snack-bars. Some places had abolished the half-pence by rounding it up on some things and made unashamed increases on others, amounting sometimes to 30%. Public transport caused its own confusion. Inexplicably, most bus services did not go over to decimal until the following Sunday and chaos ensued as conductors refused to accept decimal small change and, in turn, were giving change in pounds, shilling and pence. A group of South Shields trade unionists set up a decimal "doomwatch" to watch out for D-Day diddling and invited people to bring their grievances. But one of the biggest rows involved motorists and parking meters. Motorists reacted angrily when they discovered the old sixpenny fee (2½p) for one-hour parking meters in the centre of Newcastle had been doubled. "I'm not paying 5p for an hour," said one disgruntled businessman in Prudhoe Street. "I'll find a meter with some time left on it, or park illegally. But I'm not paying that price." In her weekly column in the Chronicle, Sue Hercombe said that 34p was, by her reckoning, 6s 8d. It seemed, she said, about average for a gallon of 95 octane petrol. Not so. "Thirty-four new pence; 6s 10d, please," said the garage man. No compromise of 6s 9d could be reached. "I suppose I was at fault," she wrote. "The women's magazines had been advertising this `double the new pence and stick in a stroke' technique." Apparently it was not infallible. "And these days, as any seasoned shopper knows, the customer is practically always wrong. "Even so," said Sue, "I pocketed the change smugly when I noticed the petrol attendant had accidentally given me an old penny extra
" In a shop Sue was confused by a cashier who shrieked: "Twenty-six new pence, please," and tried to charge her £1 6s. "Only after lengthy consultation, complicated mental arithmetic and reference to ready reckoners - all to the extreme agitation of over-laden customers behind - did we discover that her till had not yet been converted," said Sue. Sue also went on to highlight the problem of those monetary-linked quips. "What now for the man who doesn't care twopence? There's suddenly a new value on his devil-may-care attitude. The same goes for that two-penny-ha'penny outfit. "How does a post-D-day bruiser dish out a fourpenny one? And whatever will Boy Scouts do for a slogan in Bob-a-Job week'? "It's no good either for the lad who looks as if he's lost a shilling and found a tanner. "In for a penny, in for a pound . . . well, it was a new ratio. As for being cut off without a shilling, you might as well be simply cut off. "Myself, I regret the passing of that British institution `cod and six,' and the fact that spending a new penny, as well as being considerably more expensive, is going to sound just a bit more coy." | 
Tyne Bridge Publishing
