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The Golden Jubilee of our new pence...
Nineteen Seventy-One - the year that Bless This House, The Generation Game and Mr Benn was first seen on British television; Diamonds Are Forever and Melody (aka SWALK) were seen in cinemas; George Harrison became the first solo Beatle to have a number one hit; Private Eye changed from two shillings to ten pence (i.e. no price change which was ironic considering); and the pound was split into percentages thanks to changes decided in both government and at the Royal Mint. And Edward "Call Me Ted" Heath was Prime Minister with a recently demoted Harold Wilson as his Opposition Leader in which five years into the future was a long time in politics, never mind just one week.
Monday 15th February 1971 was when it started properly, and Monday 15th February 2021 marks exactly half a century since Britain went decimal, bid farewell to the shilling and replaced it with five new pence, (and there was a postal strike happening at the time as well). I know that we have discussed decimalisation on here a few times in the past, but 50 years on, it's fascinating to have a look back and see what has changed since - I notice that there doesn't seem to be any TV programmes about it coming up. It was indeed the Brexit of 1971, and most of the late 1960s, come to that. The overlap between a shilling and a 5p coin stems from April 1968 on St George's Day that year when the 5p was introduced, right up until 1990 when the 5p shrunk in size to become the same size as the halfpenny coin which was withdrawn in 1984. Likewise, 10p and two shillings was double that value. One could get a whole month worth of Daily Mirror issues (with a horrible 1970-1971 redtop logo on the front page) for one pound where it would just afford one day's worth these days. The old LSD was no more - and I wonder how many thought that it was withdrawn because resembled a type of drug?
Even that day's television looked great: in the morning, you may have seen at school (or even on the bedroom portable at home if you were ill or a school refuser) Merry-Go-Round which had responded to the decimalisation situation on "New Money Day", and in the afternoon, Decimal Five was on after the "Telephone" episode of Trumpton. Noakes, Singleton and Purves oversaw Blue Peter; and later on, A Question of Sport, Z Cars and Panorama was on BBC 1 with a post-watershed Come Dancing was on later - no Strictly in those days. Over on BBC 2, a monochrome series on preventing crime which was followed by The High Chaparral. That itself was followed Bobbie Gentry who presented that week's "Show of the Week", and Horizon looked at people who were both dependent and addicted on drugs. ITV's evening schedule consisted of some magic from David Nixon; a Rovers' return to colour in Coronation Street; left-wing Grauniad journalism in World in Action; and Kenneth Haigh who was the Man at the Top. Yorkshire viewers saw Granny Gets the Point in the afternoon.
Looking at old newspapers from back then, it is fascinating to see supermarket advertisements advertising their latest items for sale - the 7 1/2p of 1971 could be the 24 1/2p of 1978, and the 42p of 1985. Three main television programmes were on at the time in the run up to the second biggest D Day since 1944 - the first was D-Day Minus One, seen in the early Sunday afternoon slot on BBC 1 (known 15 to 30 years later as the sluggish EastEnders omnibus slot, and was otherwise used for sport, films and the odd Tom and Jerry cartoon up until then), and the Scaffold of Lily the Pink fame singing a very 1960s sounding song in the opening titles to what was still a monochrome programme - even Max Bygraves tried one with his novelty hit on Decimalisation - no wonder he got excited about Big Money on Family Fortunes a decade and a half later! Robin Day might have been involved with that.
The second one was Decimal Five - a five minute programme in the post-Watch With Mother slot on BBC 1 on weekday afternoons, giving those people a helping hand to telling them about the new currency - the premiere of Mr Benn was shown around this time of day as well. And the third one was Granny Gets the Point which was shown on ITV during the day, so therefore it didn't get a networked slot, although stations such as Yorkshire and Grampian did show it. "Granny" happened to be Doris Hare of On the Buses fame, and someone who lived to see the start of the year 2000. Cue Granny getting upset when a young man tries to show her the ropes of the new money to her - a pity that Reg Varney wasn't around, considering ironically enough that he had used a cashpoint before anyone else did in Britain just a few years earlier. Even in Hare's regular haunt back then, Blakey was asking Stan Butler "how can a canteen work on quarter Ps?" "Well, we have split peas", came the reply from the cheerful bus driver to the Hitler lookalike - the episode was in black and white due to the colour strike.
The Public Information Films used on BBC 1 and some ITV regions were released in the late 1990s on the Charley Live video, and many of them were made on behalf of the Decimal Currency Board - a government quango, (was that word around then? - I thought it was introduced along with John Major over 20 years later), with politicians and civil servants such as Lord Fiske and Noel Moore involved working with the Heath and first Wilson governments. It was born in around 1966 and would eventually be wound up towards the end of September 1971 according to the Daily Express - many of its adverts appeared in national newspapers throughout the late 1960s and up to August 1971. It rubbed shoulders with the 1971 Census PIF on there as well. Never mind about the "discarded fridges near railway lines" PIF before Nationwide as they were at least five years into the future.
And Nationwide still in its "three times a week" Philip Tibbenham era were getting excited as well, interviewing in pre-colour a sub-Gail Grainger/Valerie Leon/Margaret Nolan-alike woman dressed in scenically-clad way as a "Decimal Dolly", helping Queen Mother generation pensioners out with the new translation from old to new. When Channel 4 did a documentary Funny Money about decimalisation in 2001 in order to mark 30 since the changes took place, a 1971 perspective of an elderly woman being vox-popped in the street, probably somewhere in Leeds, was quoted as saying "why don't you wait until we're all gone before making these changes?", and others saying: "I know I have got my head in the sand, but it is my head in my sand".
In a colourful Coronation Street, thankfully back from its three month monochrome sabbatical, the regulars (Hilda, Betty and others) were debating in the Corner Shop about the new money; only two years before the late Jack Walker thought that the 50p coin was a foreign one when he was given it in payment for a pint of beer. Old episodes on YouTube show that the DCB poster in the shop was there for at least a year or more. The fact that apart from the odd filmed scene, Corrie was to be made in fulltime colour again, just like it is to the present day - it's a pity that ITV 3 (or Granada Plus for that matter) hardly ever show episodes from this era, although rumour had it that many were missing anyway.
I have to admit that being born 7 1/2 years into decimalisation, I think that the "100 pennies make a pound" system seems a lot more straightforward than the shillings and old pence format, similar to dollars and cents, and I would have still said that if I had been around to experience the pre-decimal currency back then - 68% of a pound is 68p of course and all that - what was that in pre-decimal currency, I wonder? I would love to see more Tesco adverts from around February 1971 to see exactly how much a 100g (sorry, a 4oz) jar of Nescafe was back then - no Sale of the Century prices needed there of course - I would guess under 50 new pence.
As British Decimalisation now tries to blow out in one breath its 50 candles on its birthday cake, I was wondering whether the huge 1971 changes were actually remembered by yourselves or even whether decimalisation is better than the old system? I know that we have had similar topics on this before on here, but it is a big anniversary we are now at, after all...
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