when secured, set off up Quaker Road
to reach and point our silvered palms
as we reduced our ten p loads.
First, the crisps, nine pence gone,
and then one left to spend just right.
You wouldn't believe how long
it took us to choose what to buy.
The poor woman we called the lady!,
we must have driven her mad;
we'd no sooner got a penny jelly baby
but we were trying to get our money back.
Our Granny didn't ever give us gifts
but, we got the odd bulky, heavy card.
Now, part of that was actual adhesive:
She'd stick coins onto one side, very hard
to remove but we accepted the challenge
and compared our Sellotaped spoils, first
in obverse-sides-up towers, neatly balanced,
and then and only then in worth.
No one ever got the same amount
as another, so there was always a winner
and we enjoyed the competitive count
as much as the Tanora she always had in.
I can remember how the pound coin enthralled me,
the red deer forged the big, green note's replacement.
And I travelled with Deutschmarks, Francs and Lire
before the Euro took the Punt from circulation.
There's something rooting about cash in your hand,
just thinking about it transports me, isn't it funny
to be defined in your own memory of time and land?
Ah, spare a thought for the future's fish money.
(Explanation: I hear, more and more, about the possibility of cash being replaced by electronic pay systems. Click here for one recent article I read on the subject. I hope this doesn't happen. Cash is like scents or sounds, it can put you somewhere or sometime, just by thinking about it. I think it is especially important for children to handle money and to learn about its worth.
Our trips to the shop, in the early 1980's, mostly took place when we were at our aunt's house. The shop in the poem was called Fitzgerald's. When we were at home we were too far away from the nearest shop to walk to it. That was part of the excitement, being able to get to the shop in two minutes.
We used to call the ten-pence piece "fish money" because it had the image of a salmon on it. And, I know it's hard to believe, we were able to buy a bag of Tayto crisps with a fish money and get change!).
