it was fifty years ago today! who can remember decimal day?

[two sheds]

No one knowing which side to drive. It must have been chaos. Especially at roundabouts

When I lived in the Netherlands drivers coming onto the roundabout had priority so you had to stop at every road coming onto it. They seem to have seen the light and adopted the British system now.

Also priority from the right which I think they still have. I've got to crossroads before now with four cars - you'd inch forward and the driver on your right decided they had priority so inched forward too. And so on round ...

 

[danny la rouge]

Squeaky bananas and Prawns were the best

I’d forgotten them!

 

[existentialist]

I seem to recall the Two New Pence coin being introduced ahead of actual Decimal Day and a kid l knew being keen on collecting them.

Yeah, I think a few of them crept in early (5 and 10ps, but that made sense as they were identical to the coins they replaced). Starting with the 2p seems a bit mad, as it might be confused for the old penny (to very easily confused people).

But you know why they put corners on the 50p? It was so you could use a spanner to get it out of the hands of a Scottish person

 

[killer b]

Interesting article here: The Other ‘D’ Day

especially love the images they have of rejected coin designs, these two are brilliant.

 

[rubbershoes]

That’s Sweden!

I keep on getting this wrong. Ursakter!

 

[editor]

D Day!

 

[editor]

I can still sing the songs: " Use your old coppers in sixpenny lots," "give more, get change!" ....

 

[Sasaferrato]

"Use your old coppers in sixpenny lots"

I've completely switched to kilos and Celcius - it's just miles left - I really need to set my cycle computer to KM/H ...
And if I'm measuring materials, I'll use inches if it's convenient ...

You you you Philistine!!!!!!!! Fahrenheit and pounds!!!!!!!

 

[Sasaferrato]

Yeah, I think a few of them crept in early (5 and 10ps, but that made sense as they were identical to the coins they replaced). Starting with the 2p seems a bit mad, as it might be confused for the old penny (to very easily confused people).

But you know why they put corners on the 50p? It was so you could use a spanner to get it out of the hands of a Scottish person

An Aberdonian dropped one off a ten story building, it hit him on the head at the bottom.

 

[danny la rouge]

D Day!

If you are organised a dolly bird will flirt with you!

 

[Mation]

My Nan was horrified, she predicted that it would the end of civilisation as we knew it with total economic collapse and fighting in the streets as the country descended into chaos.

Did she give a timescale for her prediction?

 

[danny la rouge]

Did she give a timescale for her prediction?

50 years and one day.

 

[bellaozzydog]

I was brought up in a household fully equipped with boxes and boxes of red triangular typhoo tea pencils with handy golden conversions embossed on them

A bit before my conscious time but the pencils are still a firm childhood memory, which is quite unusual for me

 

[MickiQ]

Did she give a timescale for her prediction?

pretty much immediately as I recall, she lived another 43 years without seeing her predictions come true so my faith in her as a soothsayer was somewhat shaken

 

[existentialist]

You you you Philistine!!!!!!!! Fahrenheit and pounds!!!!!!!

The chap who used to service my mother's sewing machine was still writing invoices in shillings and pence well into the 1980s. With, as a concession to modernity, a slightly grudging conversion to "the new money". Typed in green ink. He was a very strange person.

And yeah, any temperatures were in Fahrenheit, and he'd only stir his tea clockwise.

 

[existentialist]

An Aberdonian dropped one off a ten story building, it hit him on the head at the bottom.

Off-topic, but a famous local story in the place I used to work was that a notoriously Scottish person had, in his cups, dropped his pint and successfully caught it before it hit the ground.

 

[BCBlues]

My Gran would have been around 60 when we decimalised. She never grasped it and in the early 90s used to give me and my brother 10p to go and have a couple of pints

 

[two sheds]

My Gran would have been around 60 when we decimalised. She never grasped it and in the early 90s used to give me and my brother 10p to go and have a couple of pints

at least that's what she told you would be enough

 

[Puddy_Tat]

And yeah, any temperatures were in Fahrenheit, and he'd only stir his tea clockwise.

I almost managed once to persuade a colleague who was about to visit Australia that it was essential that you stirred tea in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere, otherwise the water got tangled. as in water going the other direction when it goes down the plug-hole...

 

[Puddy_Tat]

as for half (new) pennies, some places used to have some sort of self service ticket machine 'one man' buses in the 70s (you could either pay the driver and get change, or use the self service machine)

reading (and a few other places) had these things -

one side printed the date and time (or may have been the stop number) but on the other side you got a thermal photo-copy of whatever you had bunged in (obviously you would be in the shit if an inspector got on and it showed an old farthing, an irish penny and a half inch washer)

so before a visit to grandparents in reading, i would save half-pennies as a 6 or 7 p ticket (or whatever it was then) would be fairly substantial...

 

[WouldBe]

Starting with the 2p seems a bit mad, as it might be confused for the old penny (to very easily confused people).

2p was virtually the same size as the old half penny. I bought some 2p wagon wheels using old half pennies.

 

[Sasaferrato]

I was puzzled why the NAFFI vending machines in Germany took all German coins except for a 1DM coin. Then I realised that a 5p coin and a 1DM coin were exactly the same size.

 

[nottsgirl]

I remember when shillings were still currency as 10p. Or was it half a shilling for 5p? Something like that. Is this right?

 

[cupid_stunt]

I remember when shillings were still currency as 10p. Or was it half a shilling for 5p? Something like that. Is this right?

1 shilling = 5p
2 shillings = 10p

Both coins remained in circulation for years.

 

[isvicthere?]

I was puzzled why the NAFFI vending machines in Germany took all German coins except for a 1DM coin. Then I realised that a 5p coin and a 1DM coin were exactly the same size.

When l lived in Germany (1980-1) l stocked up on 5p coins, which enabled very cheap international phone calls.

 

[gentlegreen]

Only decades after we switched to base 10, I learned how to count to 12 on one hand ...

/banjos

I'll get my coat ...

 

[klang]

You paid tradesmen, such as a carpenter, in pounds but gentlemen, such as an artist, in guineas. "

those were the days when artists were still considered gentlemen.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I shat myself on Decimal Day.

 

[existentialist]

I shat myself on Decimal Day.

Purely by coincidence?

 

[Artaxerxes]

I shat myself on Decimal Day.

That was one of the forgotten number ones of the seventies.