Week One

Liz

When the bank changed over to the new pre printed cheque book system I went around all the branches to go through all the account names checking the bradma plates to the account names before amending any incorrect ones & sending them off to Head Office. At one of the Blackpool branches I was going to make myself a cup of tea, but I couldn't find any. One of the staff said that they only drank coffee but she said there was a tea caddy in one of the cupboards but nobody had drunk tea for years & years. I was absolutely horrified when I opened the tea caddy to find it completely full of maggots, so God only knows how long the tea had been in there.

 

Sheila

- I did that job for the cheque book system in either 1979 or 1980 with a girl called Lindsay from Bradshawgate in Bolton - I was based in Oldham.

We went to different branches and got lots of expenses for petrol and lunches it was a great job got to meet loads of people and the extra money paid for a 2-week holiday in Newquay

 

Carole

Peter Duxbury was on counter at Kendal one day when a customer asked if she could have some new five-pound notes. He said he would have to go down into the cellar for some. He then proceeded to walk along the counter, stooping lower and lower, as if there were a flight of steps directly behind the counter. A few minutes later this was repeated in reverse, with Peter wiping his brow at the 'exertion.' He handed the lady her brand new five pound notes (which had been in his till all the time) and she was most grateful and apologised for causing him extra work. Dave was watching all this from behind the counter and still laughs about it - he says it was so realistic.

Phil

Great memory of a born comic, always good company was Pete.

 

Gill

There used to be a rounders bat in the ladies loo. Nobody would admit to why it was there!!

 

Tim

Working at Seacroft branch in the 80's a business customer handed in the slip from his cheque book to pick up his new book. He was a builder and just had his trading name (M B Erection) on his cheques. When the girl who was asked to get the cheque book had retrieved it, she came to the back of the tills and shouted "cheque book for Mr Erection"

 

Graham

We had a client at Cleckheaton in the 70's called Richard Sole, who just had R Sole on his cheque book.

 

Tim

You couldn't make it up could you. Had a customer at Bramley called Mary Christmas. Not as funny.

 

Gill

I remember at Crossgates a customer leaving their baby in a pram We asked every customer in the branch, and no one claimed it so we took it into the back office and just as we were about to call the police and woman ran in panicking- she forgot she had the baby with her and had gone to do her shopping.

Jackie

We had an eccentric elderly spinster who came into Holmfirth branch to open a savings account. It was very quiet, and she was sitting in enquires going through the application. When asked for her title she said very loudly... it’s Miss and I’m a virgin by choice . That was back in the early 1980’s and still makes me laugh.

 

Tim

Again, at Seacroft we came in on a Monday morning to find a half-eaten pizza behind the perpex screen on the ATM that used to cover the keypad between transactions. Also remember an eccentric old lady who kept her passbook down the front of her trousers & used to retrieve it whilst in the banking hall. We all hoped she didn't join the queue at our till

 

Karen

In my earlier days at Armley, I had to go into one of the interview rooms to open a savings account for a little old lady. When I asked her how much she wanted to deposit, she started unbuttoning her blouse only to reveal that some years ago she had undergone a mastectomy and ever since had used the “spare compartment” to keep her money safe, I remember it coming out warm & in a perfect moulded shape! The lady exclaimed that historically she had believed no burglar would look there but in the early 80’s was now questioning it.

 

Karen

During a stint on excesses at York branch I had a meeting to read the riot act to a particularly badly overdrawn customer. After refusing a further advance against his wages (apparently, he had no money to buy nappies for a toddler who was at present at the meeting) A few minutes after the meeting had ended my phone rang to say we had a problem in reception & upon arrival I was hit by the smell of . Unfortunately, I should have listened as said child had clearly filled the last nappy & was now happily paddling the contents around our lovely waiting room. The wonderfully amusing Barry Flowers ( our manager at the time) popped his head out of his office & observed “ I see one of our younger depositors has been in” ...... priceless!

 

Carole

Chadderton branch: Neville Newton opened the post box one day (late 70's early 80's) and jumped back in amazement when a pigeon flew out at him and then proceeded to shite all over the branch. No one had any idea how the pigeon had got into the letterbox but obviously the rest of the staff thought this was hilarious, seeing Nev flap about as much as the pigeon. They opened the double doors and the pigeon eventually flew out , seemingly unharmed. The letters were all covered in slimy pigeon poo though - and to think Neville thought pigeon post was a thing of the past!!!

Andrew Kirk 

Episode 1

At Blackburn and, like many others, this is where I met my first wife, Ann Brindle, but unlike many others, when we got married, we weren’t split up. We carried on working together until she left to take up other employment.

Things were much different then, all senior staff had to be called by their surname and orders to the juniors again were preceded by your surname.

I recall one such order which left me shaking with fear. Many of my Blackburn colleagues will remember Assistant Manager, Harry Sutcliffe. An ex-army major, he sported a splendid grey moustache stained brown in the middle as he was partial to snorting snuff.

“Kirk”. “Yes Mr Sutcliffe”. “Go to the tobacconist across the road and get me a quarter of snuff”. The look of horror on his face when I returned with said purchase still sends a shiver down my spine to this day. How was I to know he meant a quarter of an ounce not a quarter of a pound.

Episode 2

I left Blackburn in 1974 having been transferred to Preston.

Although I enjoyed the 3 years I worked there nothing really interesting springs to mind other than the daughter of one of our customers being a Page 3 girl. Peter Bridge was the boss and I fondly remember Jean McQueen & Margaret Rimmer.

In 1977 I was transferred to Rochdale Branch which was a bit of a culture shock because it was so much bigger and busier than Preston. I made many friends there but to avoid sounding like an Oscar winning speech I won’t name them.

What I remember most were the schoolboy pranks I was involved in mainly aimed at the poor old boss, Dennis Gallivan, like gluing his cup and saucer together. He always read the daily paper in a specific way. First the front page then turned over to the back so one day we stapled all the remaining pages together.

Finally, the piece de resistance. He had a very swish leather cigarette box which he would offer to his clients, opening the lid with a flourish. So, we stuck the two fingers from the Yellow Pages advert upside down in the lid. To this day I can’t recall his reaction to any of this childish behaviour.

 

Episode 3

Still at Rochdale.

Does anyone remember that at one time if you had another paid job outside the bank you had to get Head Office approval (I don’t suppose they bother now).

Well, this handsome young man did,but he chose to ignore it. This is Steve Darren (AKA me)

Unfortunately, I nearly came a cropper. I was asked to do a spot at the annual dinner dance at Royton Assembly Hall.

All went well until the following week when we had a visit from Brian Sanderson, and I was summoned into the boss’s office.

BS “I believe you did a very good show at last week’s dinner dance”

ME “Thanks a lot”

BS “In fact I’m told you were that good there’s no way it’s just a hobby”

ME”I just do charity shows for expenses only”

BS “What sort of venues do you perform in”

ME ”Conservative Clubs, Golf Clubs etc.”

BS “That’s ok then but you must ask for approval in writing”

 

Which I did and got. I always wondered whether Brian actually believed me.

It’s a good job I didn’t tell him about some of the seedy places I did work in including strip clubs (there’s something very unnerving about sharing a dressing room with a stripper) and I earned the same for 3 nights singing as I did for a whole week in the bank.

 

Episode 4

Here we are again as promised.

It’s 1978 and I’ve now been transferred to Littleborough as Assistant Manager, sorry Manager’s Assistant, sorry Second Official (anyway the customers knew me as Assistant Manager).

Another culture shock going from Rochdale to a staff of six including Liz Humphreys, Sonia Padkowski and Zoe Back.

 

To be honest I haven’t much to relate from Littleborough apart from a customer called Peter Sutcliffe who suffered no end of ribbing when the Yorkshire Ripper was caught. Oh, and the time I had to attend a small claims court when a customer accused us of swindling him. He had signed to debit his account for foreign currency, but when he saw the transaction on his statement, he insisted he’d paid cash.

When the presiding judge asked, “Mr Kirk if Mr Customer insists he paid cash and all the bank’s evidence indicates that cash wasn’t paid, what is the only other explanation”.

Me...” I’ve stolen it” .... Case dismissed.

Episode 5

It’s 1980 and I’m off to Shaw branch on a 6-month secondment which actually lasted almost 15 years. At some point my title was changed from Second Official to Managers Assistant. This was a double-edged sword because although I was given a pay rise, I no longer earned overtime which, in some months, meant I was worse off.

 

I have many fond memories of Shaw it was one big happy family from top to bottom.

Two notable customers, Bobby Ball of Cannon & Ball fame who was at the height of his career at the time and a dear old man called Aaron Mycock. Try shouting that name out when returning a passbook. Obviously when he was born the name wouldn’t have the same humorous connotation as it perhaps does today.

 

Those who’ve read previous episodes will know I’m very fond of practical jokes, so I’ll finish this episode off with my favourite from Shaw.

It involves the phone next to the TC500/3500 for calls to and from computer centre and an unsuspecting machinist whose name escapes me at the moment.

From the other end of the office, I call the said phone and the machinist duly answers.

“Hello, it’s John here at the computer centre (CC) is that the machinist”

Machinist (MM) “yes speaking “

CC “We are experiencing high levels of static interference and think it’s originating from your office. Could you just input a transaction” ............

“Oh yes, it’s definitely from you. Could you try again but slower and with less pressure”

MM “Is that better”

CC “Yes but I think you need to reduce the pressure a bit more”

MM “Is that any better”

CC “Yes great, that’s solved it. Just make sure you keep to that speed and don’t press the keys any harder. Thank’s a lot, bye”

 

Watching her tiptoeing around those keys had us all in stitches but I had to let her into the secret pretty quickly or it would have taken her till midnight to finish the machining.

 

Episode 6

It’s taken over a week for me to pluck up courage and tell of an episode that haunts me to this day.

I’m still at Shaw and getting ready for my annual holiday. Engineers are in installing the new counter terminals to replace our TC500.

I asked the engineer what’s going to happen to the TC500 and nonchalantly he said “Oh you can dump it”

The next day I was relating this incident to one of our regular business customers saying I thought it was rather a shame to dump such a complicated piece of equipment. His eyes lit up saying “can I have it I love tinkering with old electronics”. “No problem, I said, it’ll save me a job”. Later that day he took it away.

A couple of weeks later I return to work after my holiday to be immediately summoned into the boss, John Taylor’s office to be handed a memo from Data Processing Dept advising the collection date for the redundant TC500.

1. “I’ve spoken to DPD and explained that you’ve given it to one of our customers. They said you’d better get it back because it’s still worth quite a bit on the resale market”.
2. “B***** H** I’ll ring Mr Customer straight away and get it back”
3. “Mr C, sorry to be a nuisance but can we have our machine back, head office are coming to collect it”.

Mr C. “I’m sorry Andrew but I’ve stripped it down it’s in 100’s of pieces”

Apparently, my face was a picture and for the rest of the day I was panicking and wondering how the hell I was going to wriggle out of this one.

Luckily, I only had to suffer for the one day because just before home time JT admitted it was all a scam which even Mr C was in on.

 

I suppose I deserved it considering the number of pranks I’d been involved in in the past.

Week Two

Baldwin Ian 2020 12 08 – Halifax Christmas Tree

Got me reminiscing sharing those photos. With it coming up to Christmas I remember my 1st at Halifax in 1981. The big day arrived middle of December when two enormous Norwegian pines were delivered by Denis who had a local garden nursery business. One for each corner of the branch. We had two massive orange buckets filled with sand in the cellars which the lads carried up and the said pines were manoeuvred into them by Denis. After we closed, the then manager, the late, great, Tom Barnett, donned his Mr Fezziwig persona for one evening only, and we merrily trimmed the branch up and lights and baubles festooned the enormous trees. Now they were positioned near some radiators and for years there had been no problems, however that very day I had been tasked with altering the timing and temperature clock on the boiler which was out of the ark. I had never altered a boiler before, up to then thought the sun kept us warm. I entered the branch the next day and was met by, well you know the feeling when you step of the plane when you land in Greece, times that by 10. The Norwegian Pines hadn’t fared well in their new tropical house and Mr Barnett must have been there a while as his face was quite red, and he wasn’t sporting his Mr Fezziwig persona. Denis was dispatched back to Norway to source new ones, I found out what the phrase ‘you’re in for the high jump meant’. All ended well and I still won a tin of biscuits when we raffled off the presents customers brought in. Mr Barnett always seemed to win the bottles of whiskey though. Happy, happy days.

 

Depledge Mike 2020 05 05

We all have treasured memories, of idiosyncratic events, some of which may have become blurred over the years – here are some of mine which I believe are true but on which I am happy to be corrected?

Did the clock at Princes Avenue Branch really gain ten minutes a week, thus meaning that we could close ten minutes early on a Friday evening, so that Arthur Cooke could get the 7.15 train from Paragon Station to Ferriby – Martin Cocker may remember this? He may also remember the young lady in the shoe shop over the road, Mrs Alison’s café serving bandage pie and Harry Clipsons’s Fish and Chips.

When the fish merchants came into Hessle Road Branch was the odour so bad that Mrs Smith sprayed the customer’s side of the counter with air freshener – sometimes when they were still present!

When an old newspaper vendor died in Hull, and the police found a very old City Square passbook in his effects, did we really have about thirty galvanised buckets of filthy, green, mildewed pennies and halfpennies deposited, which George Jagger, the messenger, tried to clean by boiling. Having failed did we just bag them up by weight and fob them off on other banks, thereby getting us a bad reputation locally, for the quality of the coinage that we paid in.

Moving on to Filey – one afternoon, when locking the branch up at our normal winter leaving time of 3.10, were Olaf Cadman, myself were accosted on the doorstep, by two gentlemen, with briefcases, who introduced themselves as Inspectors, and who asked that we all re-enter the Branch so that they could start an inspection.

Did Olaf really say, “I am sorry, but I am going fishing you will have to come back in the morning” and then walk away without waiting for a reply.

Bowers Alan M 2020 04 12 

Thanks for pointing me here - some fantastic memories of my time in Yb.

I joined in the summer of 1983 on the banks management development scheme. George Cookson interviewed be at Merrion Way - I was sporting a broken nose and a stitched eye (rugby) so I was surprised to be offered the job. Started at Altrincham branch with Gerald Baguley as the branch manager. Then moved to Stockport branch as a grade 3 working for Doug Lowther. Amazing times there, growing the business (kept proceeds of a drug bust in the strongroom for about 6 weeks with everyone sworn to secrecy). Left Stockport to open a new branch in Hanley with Martin Ibbetson as the BM (armed raid uncovered the fact that everyone except Martin smoked). Then I moved again to Sheffield and became office manager at Haymarket branch under the stewardship of David Jordan (known as the pope as he “blessed” all the credit officials when they sanctioned a lend). The management team were David, Laurie Haley and Carl Ashley - some very funny nights as a management team “out” including the midnight raid of the premises through the front window.

Then got the call to re-join Doug Lowther again at Barnsley setting up a business unit with Phil Meekin. Next on the journey was a transfer to Doncaster branch where the BM was Tony Marsh before Peter Goldsborough took over and I enhanced my BD skills with my partner in crime David Jones (looking forward to his book coming out - you couldn’t make it up!)

Next, I turned poacher to gamekeeper and joined credit with David Borrowdale, heading up the team and I moved back to Manchester.

My next move was to join Paul Allen & James Cliffe, as we set up a large corporate offering out of Manchester. My final move was to Liverpool to establish a new business centre headed up by Ian Spink.

I left in 2007 to join an Irish Bank en route to my current employers Handelsbanken where I’ve been for the last 9 years.

I have some fantastic memories of my time with YB meeting some fantastic people and characters throughout the 24 years and there’s a little bit of me that will always be YB.

It’s probably my time with YB that makes my current role so enjoyable - it’s old-fashioned banking, doing the right thing for customers without behaviours influenced by targets. As someone once said “Friendliness - we built a bank on it” it worked so well.

Looking forward to reading other recollections of a fantastic place to work.

2020 04 21

One more story from today which  Mike Nudd popping up has caused me to remember.

In the mid-80s I was at Stockport branch with Doug Lowther and Mike and one weekend went to watch Wall Street, the story of Gordon Gekko. Well, I was mightily impressed with the braces and the shirt armbands that Mr Gekko wore. Being in banking I thought “I’ll have some of that” and purchased bright red braces and a set of silver armbands and off to work I went.

The lay out of the office was that you had to go through Doug’s office in a morning with an exchange of good mornings, thus far all was well. I went upstairs and offloaded the topcoat and butties. When the post arrived Doug would come out of his office and him and Mike would open the post.

At this stage I was at my desk doing excesses and thought right, everyone’s arrived, time to take the jacket off and live the dream. I think it was about 5 mins before Doug looked over and said “What the hell have you come as, Coco the Clown? Now either take that lot off or keep your jacket on all day! “My yuppie days were over in the blink of an eye.

 

Comments

I literally laughed out loud. I remember you dressed like this

Alan M Bowers  I thought it was a great look. I’d even gone as far as the silk tie. Glad I hadn’t slicked the hair back though. The things we did!

 

Alan, do you remember you and I went to another bank for money as we had run out. I was 17 years old, and we had thousands stuffed in our jackets and had to walk across Stockport precinct and back to YB

Oh Jeez - please say that I didn’t know about this??

I do remember that. It was the NatWest on the other side of town, and we had £20k stuffed in our attire. I also remember going to that branch for about £1k of coin and pushing it across town on that trolley. Mike you definitely know as you signed the banker’s payment lol. Can you imagine doing that now!

I’m pleading the 5^th!

Actually, I often did this when collecting cash for branches on Teesside. It was probably a lot safer to secrete it around your person than walk through town with a leather bag chained to your arm - the bag might as well have had ‘There’s cash in here’ written on it in bold lettering. Also, let’s face it, if anyone had sussed Alan’s game, would they be wanting to rummage amongst his undergarments? Or mine, come to that!

Glyn Howarth

Funny story involving well known characters from Rochdale and surrounding branches back in the 80’s. Still makes me laugh. All us blokes used to go to the rugby league final at Wembley each year in a minibus filled up with beer. Some may remember the names: Graham Titford, Jim Coleman, John Gugas, Andy Ingram, Andy Dixon, Gary Dixon, Terry Taylor, Darren Day, Mike Croasdale, and me, amongst others.

Our driver was the famous Rochdale Messenger “Cleggy”, and he always drove the minibus. We set of from Rochdale town hall at 7.30am and by 9am, lots had been drunk. I remember Graham opening a can of beer at the back of Cleggy’s head when he was driving. You can imagine the response from Cleggy!!

A bit later we all started to look forward to pulling into the services to use the facilities. “Cleggy mate, can you pull in at next services?” Silence........ Five minutes later...... Cleggy mate? ......... nothing. Finally came to the services and at last minute he pulls in up the slip road. “Cheers Cleggy, you are a star mate!! ......Only for him to drive straight through, past the petrol station and out through the exit!!!! ......What a guy!!!!

 

Carole Hardisty

David was at Kendal branch when Peter Duxbury was transferred there from Heywood in the early 70’s. Some tourists called in to exchange some Austrian Schillings & Dave looked up the Australian exchange rate by mistake (the Oz dollar being worth far more than the Schilling). Peter checked the calculation, again using the Australian rate. When the error came to light the Manager, Mr Eric Schofield, was not best pleased as the branch stood to lose about £40.00

Although it was more than likely that the Austrians had already moved on to the Lake District, Mr Schofield told Dave & Peter that they could forget any plans they had for the night as they had to go to every hotel in Kendal, to try and track these tourists down and recover the money. Pete & Dave thought this was a grand idea and Pete suggested they should visit the pubs too, as most had accommodation (and served far better beer). They did indeed go to every hotel and pub in Kendal, having a beer in each in case said Austrians turned up.

 

They never did find them!!

  

Carole Hardisty

I witnessed this exchange at Royton branch 45 years ago and it still makes me chuckle:

 

Manager – Peter, can you get me some Destroy labels?

 

Peter - We haven't got any!

 

Manager - What do you mean we haven't got any? You are in charge of the stationery, so why haven't we got any?

 

Peter - They had 'Destroy ' on them, so I threw them all away!

Just another recollection of my time as an 18-year-old cashier at Stockton branch. One thing Stockton had in abundance was customers. So many that you could go for weeks without offending the same one twice. There they’d be, a sea of blank faces being bombarded with The Glen Campbell Goodtime Album from the piped cassette tape, waiting to eventually reach the head of the ironically named “quick queue” snake.

I’d dutifully rung my bell to summon the next customer and was struck by how unwell she looked - even by Teesside standards. Heavily pregnant, she gasped that standing for so long in the queue hadn’t done her much good at all. (I’ve deleted the expletives - all three of them). Remembering the ‘Engage with Our Customers’ session of my recent cashiers’ course, and with all the conversational finesse of a crash gearbox, I began to ask if she had a name for the baby when it arrived, but by then she was bent over on the counter, head in hands. All I heard from her over Rhinestone Cowboy was “Oh Jesus.” as she began to slowly sink from view.

I didn’t bother asking if she had a name for a girl...

Everything then became a bit of a blur as, with the lightening-quick reactions of an 18-year-old cat I thrust my arm through the gap at the bottom of the glass screen and grabbed her in a frantic attempt to at least break her fall. This was, in part, successful in that while she hung, unconsciously suspended just below counter level, my left arm was fully extended and then some, a pane of Pilkington’s finest laminated glass invading my personal space.

At this point, a branch supervisor who will remain nameless, began to wonder why there appeared to be no customer at till 4 and urged me to “press your bell Whitfield, press your bell man”, apparently unaware that approximately a quarter of me was on the customer side of the bandit screen.

At this point it would be reassuring to report that a good dozen of the queueing customers rushed to the aid of my pregnant pendulum. Sadly, this didn’t happen – no-one willing to give up their hard-won position in the line. Instead, a rescue party of staff eventually arrived and, ambulance summoned, I was able to release my grip.

I learned a lot that day. Putting the needs of the customer first; keeping calm under pressure (or in this case, tension), but most of all to duck down and sort my bronze if the next customer looked remotely gippy.

That baby will be in his or her mid-forties now. Hope he or she banks with us.

 

Hard on the heels of my recent ramblings about being a junior clerk in the 1970's, I've been thinking about some aspects of the YB experience we were expected to quickly get our heads around as new entrants.

Payday being a moveable feast, with salaries paid on the 3rd Wednesday monthly, rather than on the 20th monthly which came much later. The resultant dreaded "five week month" meant that sometimes next payday seemed light years from the last.

Salaries not paid directly into current accounts, but instead requiring some form filling shenanigans to get the dosh transferred to where you could actually get to it.

The unique sound of branches. Incessantly ringing phones, rattling TC500's and cheque encoding machines accompanied by the thump of Bradma chequebook machines, all overlaid with piped cassette muzak for the "entertainment" of queueing customers.

Sundry Persons (later Sundry Items), Interest Bearing Account Cheque Suspense, Bankers Payments Issued and all of the other initially mysterious Impersonal Ledgers.

Calculating interest penalties.

Local hand deliveries of mail when the messenger was on holiday and the cries of "Blimey, that was quick" when you returned from your post round an hour sooner than the messenger usually did...

Annual stationery orders, and the discovery that you'd accidentally ordered sufficient paying-in slips to wallpaper the Tees Flyover. Twice.

 

There was a time, back in the days of analogue banking, when we used a lot of rubber stamps. Let’s be honest, there were few YB forms which couldn’t be embellished with a bit of well-inked embossing. I’m not thinking only of the ubiquitous date stamp, so beloved by cashier and ICDP alike, but the more esoteric stamps - you know the ones who resided on those little carousels, gathering dust until the next “date of death” or “registered in the books of” emergency. I seem to remember that alongside these bad boys there might be found a stamp consisting of 2 parallel lines used to cross “open” cheques (try explaining that concept to a millenial), or perhaps a stamp from which you could produce any combination of 8 numbers you liked, used for producing temporary cheque books – remember them?

If I had to choose my personal favourites, I’d certainly put the date stamp in there, largely because it must have been the one I used the most during my 40 years of pretending to be a bank official. There was something satisfyingly robust and solid about it - the Toyota Hilux of inkable office kit. You’d wear-out the rubber long before the cast metal body or the wooden handle expired and there aren't many products you can say that about. Next up would have to be a small wonder of a stamp. What a little beauty! A perfectly divided rectangle, the right half containing just enough space for an unidentifiable squiggle. This wasn’t just any stamp, it was a “signature compared” stamp. Finally for my top three, let’s hear it for (and on behalf of) the “per-pro” stamp! Just seeing it wrapped around your signature lent your moniker an air of dignity and gravitas.

 

I seem to have struck a rich vein of memories (or perhaps traumatic flashbacks) in response my recent post about life as a junior clerk in the old days.

Some of the things experienced do stick. Even in retirement I sometimes wish I had one of those card index calendars; you know, the ones stuffed with reminders to, say, do a fire drill (not that I do one now, you understand).

Then there were the diary notes you kept shifting forwards a few weeks, like clean out the staffroom fridge”, or “check the tea fund” - for what I was never entirely sure. Tea?

There were also the diary notes which fell into the PITA category. Do you remember the one to swap the strongroom keys over to even-up wear? That little gem involved retrieving two sets of safe custody packages from other banks, doing said swap and then parcelling up and redepositing the other keys at the other two banks. Half a day spent there pal!

And what about the cryptic diary notes. I remember one at some branch or another which looked years old and simply contained the words “six–monthly. Contact M Unwin”. No, me neither.

Finally – and this is no word of a lie - I clearly remember a diary note which used to pop out of the Darlington branch diary to check the cracks in the basement ceiling to ensure they hadn’t grown, presumably indicating imminent collapse of the building.

Card index calendars! Anyone got one they could send me?

 

There was a period of time in my early career which involved me being told “you’re going on relief” a lot. I’m sure it was purely coincidental, but this period began just after having got to grips with cashiering, albeit on a very basic level - you know, very little eye contact with customers. Or the reserve holder. If you imagine my cashiering abilities expressed as a Venn Diagram, let’s just say that I didn’t fall anywhere near the nice middle bit between the “can stand upright behind a counter for 6 hours” and the “can balance a till” circles.

Relief duties taught me so much. I recall spending a week at a very quiet branch in the Tees Valley, where boredom saw me resort to reading the manager’s impressive stock of new car literature. Even today I can readily tell you the fuel tank capacity of a Vauxhall Cavalier Mk 2 (15 gallons if you’re interested).

Speaking of cars, I once drove to Berwick Hills branch to be told on arrival that the absent staff member had in fact just turned up after a late night out so I was no longer required and could I return to base. In the intervening 5 minutes 22 seconds, someone had reversed into my 1969 white Austin Maxi (yes; yes I know but it was given to me) causing much upset and a piece of chrome trim to fall off.

44 years on and I still smart at the injustice of that episode.

Finally, I once spent a full week as a cashier at Bishop Auckland branch and when eating my lunch was struck by how shabby the staffroom table and chairs were, not to mention the staffroom itself. It was only on the Friday when I heard colleagues voices from an adjoining room that I realised that I’d spent 5 days dining in a storeroom where the old staffroom furniture had been dumped.

Relief duties. Character-building stuff!

Multi Tasking November 2020

 

I’ve long admired accomplished multitaskers. You know, the ones who make metaphorical plate-spinning seem easy. Speaking as one who struggles to slice an onion and listen to Ken Bruce at the same time, I salute their skill. Provided they aren’t cocky with it.

 

On this note, I’m reminded of a customer I encountered who worked as an Air Traffic Controller. His party piece was to ring the branch to discuss his unsecured overdraft whilst simultaneously clearing a flying school Cessna for take-off and talking down an arriving Dan Air BAC 1-11 from Alicante. This, as you can imagine, made for some interesting telephone conversations.

To protect his identity, I’ll call him Dick (which I seem to recall is how he was known by the staff). A typical conversation went thus:

 

Me - “Hello, can I help?”

Customer - “Roger that, one-niner. Line up and wait to taxi”

Me - “?”

Customer – “Can we uplift my overdraft until the month-end – been a heavy month. Which SID are you using for departure?”

Me - “?”

Customer - “Pushback approved”.

 

Now at this point I should say that my lack of response wasn’t entirely due to Dick’s confusing utterances. In truth I was more concerned that one wrong word from me could be patched-through to a flight deck and between us we’d have the 13.35 from Benidorm making a gear up landing in the Tees, perhaps resulting in dozens of sodden toy donkeys

Or, far far worse, having to make a diversion to Leeds Bradford.

Never did discover why he found it necessary to ring us whilst working or indeed why I felt compelled to take his calls.

Roger that indeed....

 

INDEX CARDS - November 2020

I seem to have struck a rich vein of memories (or perhaps traumatic flashbacks) in response my recent post about life as a junior clerk in the old days.

Some of the things experienced do stick. Even in retirement I sometimes wish I had one of those card index calendars; you know, the ones stuffed with reminders to, say, do a fire drill (not that I do one now, you understand).

Then there were the diary notes you kept shifting forwards a few weeks, like clean out the staffroom fridge”, or “check the tea fund” - for what I was never entirely sure. Tea?

There were also the diary notes which fell into the PITA category. Do you remember the one to swap the strongroom keys over to even-up wear? That little gem involved retrieving two sets of safe custody packages from other banks, doing said swap and then parcelling up and redepositing the other keys at the other two banks. Half a day spent there pal!

And what about the cryptic diary notes. I remember one at some branch or another which looked years old and simply contained the words “six–monthly. Contact M Unwin”. No, me neither.

Finally – and this is no word of a lie - I clearly remember a diary note which used to pop out of the Darlington branch diary to check the cracks in the basement ceiling to ensure they hadn’t grown, presumably indicating imminent collapse of the building.

Card index calendars! Anyone got one they could send me?

Subsequent comments:

• I once took out a diary note which just said. RUSH, when I asked office manager what it was, it was his, asking himself “ R U still here ?”
• There was always the re-ink the ink pads and water the sponges !!!
• Do you remember the “water ugbert” diary note. I think it was for the plant that took on a life of its own despite us not watering it.
• 1974 at Crossgates we had a diary note to wash the dates stamps/crossing stamps every 6 months. Involved rubber gloves, copious amounts of Fairy Liquid together with a straightened paperclip to get the gunge out of the middle of letters!!
• I heard that one ex manager had a weekly note that said... Remember to praise someone today.
• My first one was "change Mr. Brown's blotting paper", he had to have a clean blotter sheet every Monday morning!!!!
• Ian, remember the one that reminded us to wash the atm screen, which at Darlo was quite often covered in vomit! That one got shuffled around a lot.
• Anyone at Ilkeston Branch remember the diary note to sweep the flat roof?

 

Franking Machine November 2020

 

I can vividly remember it’s arrival. Here was white-heat technology, nestling in its custom-made attaché case. Goodbye balancing stamps and the stomach-churning unease of standing-by whilst a visiting inspector checked the postage book for accuracy.

The year was 1976 and Stockton branch had moved into the 20th century with the arrival of a hand-cranked Pitney Bowes franking machine. As an office junior I couldn’t have been more delighted with this new toy. That's how sad I am, er……was.

Alas, that delight was fairly short-lived. You see, the branch strongroom was in the office basement which of course meant that tills and anything else of an intrinsic value had to be carted downstairs at the close of play each day.

One Friday, shortly after the arrival of the franking machine, I was lugging it in its case down the stairs when an insecurely fastened clasp unclasped and the shiny new machine made a spirited bid for freedom, impressively somersaulting down more than 20 stairs, striking at least 12 in cartoon fashion, before coming to a rolling halt about 15 feet further down the corridor.

Being the dutiful employee I naturally made a full confession of this unfortunate event to the nearest supervisor.

Except of course that I didn’t.

Instead, alarmed that I might somehow be accused of wilful damage to an expensive piece of equipment and aware that the event had been unwitnessed, I hurriedly put the machine back in its case and it continued its journey to the strongroom.

It was with some trepidation that I removed my franking friend from its case the following Monday. Imagine my relief on discovery that everything looked OK, with the machine appearing remarkably intact.

That relief was sadly short-lived. Lifting the machine onto the post desk the first thing which became apparent was that it could no longer stand unaided. Even with a supporting hand it had adopted a lopsided gait which didn’t look at all promising. Worse was to come when I attempted to frank the first letter. The handle, which normally turned with well-oiled ease completed half a revolution before jamming solidly.

The machine was beyond repair and a replacement had to be procured but not before a full confession was extracted from the party responsible for its demise. I don’t recall being punished too harshly, other than spending more time than I might have on franking duties once the replacement machine arrived.

If anyone reading this still works at High Street Stockton and has ever wondered why the basement stairs have some odd franking machine-shaped dents in them, then I might have an explanation...

Haley Laurie April 2020

 

Apologies if I’ve spelled anyone’s name incorrectly in amongst this drivel.

I left school at 18 after A levels, though there were no A’s amongst them. They did however give me one year’s advancement on the pay scale, so I probably earned a guinea a month more than some of my contemporaries at that time.

My start date was 20/08/1973 - After that, I was old enough to drink so my memory of subsequent dates is somewhat sketchy.

My first job was Junior Clerk > Cashier : Gresham Branch, Middlesbrough. Derek Moon/ Derek Adams – During my time there, I formed an artistic alliance with Jim McClure, the branch messenger. He was a talented artist with a gift for cartoons – I was a writer of comic verse and our joint efforts filled a gap or two in the Pennant staff magazine. All sorts of other crazy and cringeworthy things happened, during my time there, as others will no doubt recall. I certainly remember wearing a black suit and bow tie to work on one occasion – probably during my Bryan Ferry phase.

@1975 – The first of many transfers with no signing on fee. Cashier : Oxford Road, Middlesbrough. Norman Kydd / Derek Wilson – A fun branch to work at. Mr Kydd went home for lunch on his bicycle and on his return would update me with the Test Match score. I also seem to recall us all listening to tape recordings of Fawlty Towers during quiet spells, of which there were many, in this tiny branch in a leafy suburb of the Boro.

@1976 – Oxford Road moved me on, on another free transfer to South Bank, Middlesbrough. Cashier/ Occasional stints on Enquiries. Logan Shields/ David Young. This was the ‘old branch’ directly opposite BSC Cleveland Works and situated at the end of civilisation. It seemed like everyone who banked there worked at British Steel, except Paul Daniels, who had a job on the Tele. I recall the General Manager and A N Other arriving unannounced one day and as they stood at the rear of the banking hall, one of the back office staff (who shall remain nameless) realising they must be important, as they were wearing suits, shouted over ‘ Who are yer ?’ . I think that’s how the football chant originated. We also had regular visits from mice, possibly from the pet shop next door, which caused some consternation in the female ranks, as they scuttled around the light fittings ( The mice, not the ladies)

@ 1977 – 80. Having made decent progress with my Banking exams, someone obviously thought I was worthy of promotion to G3 and I made another stone’s throw move up the road to Eston, Middlesbrough, as an Enquiries clerk. Derek Adams/Ian Weatherston. I renewed my acquaintance with Derek Adams. He told me he’d some say in my transfer - ‘Better the devil you know’ he said, puffing on his pipe as ever. We churned out personal loans for fun at Eston – I used to think that if all the money we lent for furniture was spent on that, the local DFS would never had needed a Spring/Summer/Autumn/ Winter Sale. We were one of a few branches which had piped music and, on some late evening openings, I used to treat the queueing public to my Pink Floyd compilation tapes as I rattled out the personal loans. What’s it for? Furniture ?

@ 1980/81 Having got my AIB during my Eston tenure, I was again earmarked for promotion and offered a grade 4 at an un-named branch in Leeds. (We want you to move home, but we’re not going to tell you exactly where). Having turned it down, I was told ‘If you turn down the next offer, you can stay here till you rot’. Friendliness, we built a Bank on it! As it happened, the next offer was a local move anyway, and I set off for the seaside at Redcar under the tutelage of Ernie Douglas and Harry Small. Redcar was a coastal resort, though by no means the St Ives of the North East. I was only there for about 6 months, but during that time, we had several felons attempting to make fraudulent withdrawals from stolen passbooks etc. On one such occasion, I was beckoned at haste to accompany Harry Small out of the branch to pursue some brigand. When I caught up with a breathless Harry, he described the suspect as ‘tall, dark and built like a brick outhouse’ (He didn’t say ‘outhouse’ but you can guess). Given Harry’s stature and my weedy frame, I said ‘Harry, why are we chasing him?’. Later that week, I believe said fellow was apprehended by the police on an attempted murder charge. Happy days…

@ 1981 At a time of rapid branch expansion, I became aware that the Bank were due to open a branch in Stockport. As my wife to be was studying for her degree in Manchester at the time, I thought that this was now the time for me to spread my wings and move beyond the confines of Teesside. I signified to Personnel my willingness to move and although there was no position for me at Stockport, they moved Ian Eckersley there and offered me his place at Oldham, Market Place, which I accepted. Having hardly ventured into Lancashire other than a boyhood trip to Blackpool, this was a whole new experience. Buses were Buzzes, Hills were Brews, and many a discussion was had about what constituted a Tea Cake. The branch manager was Jack Waddington – a true legend, who made me so welcome and taught me that whenever things got stressful, that was the time to seek out the kettle or have a game of darts. His assistant was Glyn Pearson, whose humour was as offbeat as mine and who was more au fait with a cricket scorecard than an appraisal form. The branch messenger was another legend, Alan Hobman, who lent me his spare lawnmower, which I promptly wrecked on my overgrown garden. Jack Waddington would often tell us that he and Mr Hobman were the only permanent fixtures at Oldham; ‘ The rest of you are just passing through.’ Good times.

@ 1983 – 88 Oh dear, the Hyde years. Hyde Branch had been opened by Graham Tindall and Terry Gray at a time of rapid branch network expansion and they had done a fine job of growing the customer numbers, with many of the local Walls meat factory employees as customers. Friday lunchtimes were like a wages office and God help us if the Minibank was out of service. I took over Terry’s role as Manager’s assistant and I then realised that being in a management position wasn’t quite the fun job I’d imagined. Hyde was close to the notorious Hattersley Estate, where Myra Hindley and Ian Brady had lived – so going bad debting round that estate was an education (and I was from Teesside!). David Bentley took over as Manager while I was there and I must have eventually done something right as after about five years, in what seemed like Purgatory, they offered me a promotion as Assistant Manager at Ashton under Lyne.

@1989 -90 Tony Ackroyd and me ! I wasn’t at Ashton for that long, but I did enjoy my time there. Tony was a smashing bloke and very supportive of his staff. It was a time when everything seemed to go well. Ashton was another rough and ready sort of place, and we’d often turn up on a morning to find that some late-night reveller had got caught short and utilised our doorway as a public convenience. It was a constantly busy branch, but we had some good times, most notably raising money for Children in Need organising a quiz for customers and having the counter festooned with more soft toys than Hamleys toy store window.

@1991 -93 Once again, I must have done something right at Ashton as they offered me my first Branch Manager role at Walkley, Sheffield. This was another move of home and although back in Yorkshire, the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire was completely alien to me. Men called each other ‘Duck’, Wardrobes were ‘Waardrobes’ and some of the folk talked in a strange medieval dialect referring to ‘Thee’ and ‘Tha’. One of my business customers confessed to me that my letter about his account being overdrawn, had ‘Reet knocked his duck off, all’t weekend’. I was sorry for his duck but the early 90’s, when I finally got my own branch, coincided with sky rocketing interest rates (base rate got to 15%) and falling house prices, consequently, the days of unfettered pawnbroke lending were at an end and I was the fall guy with the bad news. Walkley as a branch however, was a fabulous place – it was a branch building in which Captain Mainwaring would have felt at home. It was like a village within a city. The staff knew every customer and their dogs by name. Whenever a dog came in, the whole place came to a standstill and said animal was petted, fed, and watered. I was ably assisted by the lovely Joan Hollowood, as my assistant. I’d taken over from Susanne Butterworth, who was a fabulous character and was so well thought of, by staff and customers alike. A hard act to follow, but I tried.

@1993-95 Despite the rigours of the Australian takeover (Having moved from Nobby Clarke’s ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ strategy, to the ‘Everything’s broken, let’s fix the lot’ attitude of his successor) and my inability to keep ducks from being knocked off, I was promoted once more, to a G8 Manager’s role, moving into the centre of Sheffield as David Jordan’s second in command at Haymarket. I think my greatest successes there were the leaving poems I wrote for the staff. Being aware of my Pam Ayres ability with words and, given that there seemed to be someone leaving the branch every other week, I think David was running out of speech material, so he called on me for some witty verse. After the first one went down well, everyone who left then expected a valedictory rhyme. I was often up until midnight on a Thursday night trying to find something to rhyme with Cashier. Poems apart, I think I’ll gloss over the Haymarket years – I had been handed a portfolio of distressed lending and after about 2 years, the lending and I were both distressed and largely written off.

@1995-1997 For some reason, this seemed to be a time of time of people leaving the Bank and so it was that Peter Neale, having taken over at Firth Park Sheffield when Steve Hyner retired not long before, decided he’d had enough, and I got handed that poison chalice. Not that there was any problem with the staff – they were all great people, ably managed by my assistant Andy North. It was just another of those branches where the counter queue was something like you currently see whenever it’s rumoured that a supermarket has had a delivery of hand sanitiser. As the typist never got off counter, I more or less taught myself to type (with two fingers of my left hand and one on my right) - a skill which has stood me in good stead all these years later, when I’m still using the same technique, though rather quicker. During my stay at Firth Park, along came the imaginatively named project ABC. The day we went live, I’d got a few bottles of something sparkling (not Lucozade) to have a little celebration at the end of the first day. Sadly, as anyone who was around at the time may remember, things didn’t quite go to plan… we did however still drink the bubbly about 7pm, mainly to drown our sorrows.

It was around about late 1996 that I realised that I didn’t really like banking. I’d always thought that the next job up the ladder would be better or more rewarding, but it invariably wasn’t. I was rather hoping for a redundancy package, but being a bit too young, that escape route wasn’t available. Thankfully my wife’s brother in California USA, threw us a lifeline, and thus it was that in 1997, I sent off my resignation letter to Personnel and bade farewell to Project ABC, incomprehensible reports, unhappy customers, and Head Office hassle, and went to sunnier climes.

Those who know me, will know that didn’t quite work out as planned – after our arrival in the USA, they declared an amnesty for illegal immigrants who were living and working in the States. The immigration service was thus swamped with ¾ of a million applications at the same time as our Green Card applications went in. After two years and no indication of an improvement in our status, we headed back to Blighty and back ‘home’ to Teesside in 1999.

I then reinvented myself as a Sage Computer accounting specialist and spent 20 happy years with a firm of Chartered Accountants – no targets, no CWIP, no Regional Managers and software that I understood and which worked !

I think that’s enough for now. If anyone has any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!

 

Reply to comments.

 

 I always tried to treat others as I would like to be treated myself. I couldn’t have been a harsh disciplinarian if I’d tried. It wasn’t in my DNA. I cared about my staff and when all that sales target crap was coming in and I saw the stress and upset it caused, it saddened me, because I had to follow directions from above that I didn’t agree with. When they introduced performance related pay and only @ 70% of the branch staff could be paid a bonus, it broke my heart to sit there and tell someone they were getting nothing. I knew how that felt. It was one of the factors that drove me to leave. Yorkshire Bank was built on teamwork not setting one person against another to see who could pressure the most credit cards onto customers. The young cashier who did their job with a smile every day and chatted to the customers and took an interest in them as human beings was as important in my eyes, in terms of business retention and business growth by word of mouth, as the person who achieved the highest % of loan insurance.

 

 Some Rochdale memories from Ray Smith

I started at Drake Street branch on 16th August 1965 at the tender age of 15 years and 7½ months, the Manager being George Greenhalgh. I think Alan Chadwick was second man, although as I remember it he was on relief at Shaw branch as the Manager there was on long term sick, and I didn’t see him for months.

My duties as the new junior included: -

Going out for cigarettes for Mr Greenhalgh who was a chain smoker and regularly blew ash over himself and others whilst the cigarette remained in his mouth. A knack I haven’t seen since!!

Changing the calendar, turning, or replacing the blotting paper as required and checking the ink was topped up and the pen nib was functionable (no biros in those days for customers to use).

Local Clearing, which was where the local banks, about 7 different ones, met daily to swap each other’s cheques with settlement in the afternoon by Bankers Payments. The staff at Drake Street had to do their share and pick up their own cheques. Once the cheques were back in the branch and amalgamated with the Glyns (Glyn Mills & Co) clearing the next job was to try to read signatures, Bradma plates and personalised cheque books didn’t exist, in order to post cheques and make sure the right account was debited. Another quandary was where to find the ledger card, the current ledger, or the DL (Debit Ledger) which held the overdrafts.

Other lasting memories are the Sunstrand adding machine, which needed some mastering, (who remembers these?) and the old Bakelite telephones, I don’t remember the phone number, but it was 4 digits ‘Rochdale xxxx’. Also, the regular trips to Edwards & Brynings at the end of the side street at the side of the Bank for all our, non-orderable on the annual stationery order, stationery needs. Charging 2d (or not!!) for withdrawals over £2 for stamp duty, the reason cheque books used to be paid for, and using the stamp duty pot to assist balancing the till!! Another memory is ‘Norpings’ that is amount savings interest was reduced by for ‘difficult’ customers, obviously the Manager’s decision.

Sorry to have droned on but one last thing that I remember is going on relief from Drake Street to Central Drive, Blackpool Branch in 1966 aged 16 as a cashier. It was quite an eye opener to go from a relatively quiet branch to a busy branch in summer in Blackpool. This was made more traumatic as I went via Blackburn Branch on the Monday where I had never seen so much cash come through the door and the needless to say, the till didn’t balance, but I was packed on my way to sunny Blackpool to spend the rest of the week there.

When I worked at Yorkshire Street (October 1967 to November 1970) it was under the control of the gentleman that was Donald Ayrton, with Alan Chadwick, June Taylor, Dorothy Lord (who went on to marry Ian Welsby), Gwen Butterworth, Peter Calladine and Pat ? who became Pat Calladine (Peter’s wife), Pete Duxbury, Susan Royal and many others that I can’t remember the names of, including that of the porter.

There were still metal tanks for the ledger cards for savings accounts and IL (Impersonal Ledger accounts) but, if my memory serves me right, there were trolleys for the mechanised current accounts and presumably DL (Debit Ledger for overdrafts) accounts. Whilst you would think balancing the machined accounts would be easy there was great fun had by all when a machinist had picked up, not the latest balance, but an earlier balance. Errors like this and, of course, casting (that’s adding and subtracting on manual ledgers) was what occupied us on the half yearly balancing in June and December when the midnight oil was burnt. Who remembers the big sheets of paper on which the ledgers were extracted?

One memorable moment was when, about 8.30ish one night whilst the balancing was in full swing, the back doorbell rang and when it was answered several burly police officers came in, the alley way at the side of the Bank having been blocked at both ends. They were responding to the alarm being pressed and thinking there was a break in. But an inquisitive young lady who was not a cashier and whose name I won’t disclose (assuming my memory serves me right) to save embarrassment, who wondered what the button just below the counter was for, I don’t think she will have ever forgotten its use.

In my time at Yorkshire Street cashier’s books were the order of the day, these were stored in the strongroom overnight. For those who have never used these big books each double page had 6 columns, 3 for credits and 3 for debits, the three columns being Savings, Current and IL accounts, if my memory serves me right. One outstanding memory from my time on the counter at Yorkshire Street is friendly competition with June Taylor to see who could serve the most customers and fill most pages in their cashier’s books. In those days you had to be a dab hand at adding up columns in £sd, that is pounds, shillings and pence to the younger ones amongst us.

The weekly trip by taxi across town to pay in to one of the Banks in the Town Hall Square, one of Owen Devanny’s of Spotland Road, who ran the Austin Princess which my wife and I had at our wedding, the money in a case which had a chain attached which had gone around the waist and down inside the sleeve of one’s jacket. Our route, all 500 yards of it, being varied in accordance with instructions.

Other memories from my Yorkshire Street days:

Walking home in a right pea souper of a fog (who remembers these?) with Gwen Butterworth after the buses stopped running. Gwen then had a further 3 or so miles as she lived the other side of Littleborough but I arrived home at Smallbridge (being a Sandknocker).

Visits to the Bank by a certain pig farmer (I won’t mention a name but those who worked at Rochdale around the late 60’s will know who I mean), no guesses that the cashiers were not in a rush to serve him for obvious reasons although sometimes we had no choice. I remember dropping a canister of new halfpennies (those that were 480 to the £) on my foot (ouch!!) when we had a delivery for said pig farmer, it was one of about 6, if my memory served me right, speculation was high as to what was going to happen to these canisters, perhaps they were to be buried but who knows. This must have been late 1968/early 1969 before they were withdrawn.

Then there was our customer Mr Ng, another customer avoided at all costs, but because nobody knew how to pronounce his name to shout out when his passbook was ready.

Then there was the story of the missing ledger card, in the days before computers each new ledger card had to be recorded on a control card to ensure there was no skullduggery going on.

There was also the first Friday night of the week the branch started to open on a Thursday night when the queues forming could be viewed from the staff room window overlooking Yorkshire Street.

Who remembers having to mark customers’ passports for the foreign currency issued when on the foreign till when there used to be a limit, was it the sterling equivalent of £30 per person? Or the green cash boxes being transported in the lift from the cellar up to the ground floor, or being the reserve holder with all that involved?

I also vaguely remember going to Bury branch to act as a customer, I think when it opened, for the publicity.

Good times and many fond memories.

 

 

Wilson-Poe Gary Raised the memory of going on relief

Going on relief and being put on No 1 till, which you had to climb over the green cash boxes to get to and had the stool that dropped when you sat on it 😊

Laurie Haley

Going on relief and no one speaking to you. Hearing them whispering behind you ‘What his name?’ Why couldn’t they just say hello and ask. Some people were so strange about relief staff.

Gary Wilson-Poe

Sometimes you got away early, especially if you travelled. Some though used to make you stay late, especially if you were good and could get other things done for them. Once went to Nelson from Blackpool, they paid a taxi to get me there but only a train home. Had to stay to help others balance, I balance straight off, and got home about 7.00pm and on a Friday

Susan Middleton

Or not even being thanked as you left

Laurie Haley

Yes indeed. As a young male employee with a car I tended to have to do most of the relief. I had a few enjoyable outings, but if I’m honest most of the time I was miserable. As you didn’t know the branch and its customers and peculiarities you’d inevitably do something wrong or say the wrong thing to the wrong person and as a relief member of staff, the staff and customers seemed to be more offhand and rude to you. Then, as you say, people at the branch didn’t always thank you for essentially helping them out. For that reason, when I got to be second man I always tried to welcome relief staff, ask their name and use it, make sure they were sorted to get something for lunch and also thank them as they left. Whether I always succeeded at that, others would have to judge, but I always tried to treat people how I would want to be treated myself.

Graham Titford

For those of you old enough to remember the old Morecambe branch in the 60’s/70’s, if you went on cashier relief in winter you were put on the till next to the window. No double glazing in those days and no heating anywhere near the till. A very cold wind blowing across Morecambe Bay straight into the window.....and it was bloody cold! They even provided a pair of gloves to wear with the fingertips cut off, so you could count the notes! Good times

Sagar Colin – March 2021

When I worked at Burnley, I went on cashier relief to Hebden Bridge from time to time. One particular week I was accompanied by Eric Roberts who was there as relief manager. As neither of us had a car we went on the bus that bounced its way over the tops from Burnley to Hebden. On Friday, which was the late night, we had a bit of time to wait for the bus so we adjourned to the pub for a couple of pints. The bus back to Burnley was very popular on Friday night as it stopped at the then 'in pub' which I think was The Shoulder of Mutton.

As the bus climbed and bounced its way back to Burnley we eventually arrived at the pub. The bouncing and shaking was a bit much for Eric "Need to shed a tear Buddy" he then proceeded to the front of the bus had a quick word with the driver, got off the bus and went into the pub. He returned to the bus and we made our way back to Burnley without incident. God Bless Eric and God Bless the bus driver for waiting.

A tale from another bank

David Mills started life in Lloyds Bank on the Isle of Wight.  He later joined the bank of New Zealand in London, which, like YB, was swallowed up by NAB.  NAB sent him on a secondment to New York, where by complete contrast to his tale below, he was dealing with millions of dollars on a daily basis.  At the end of three years he had to return to the UK on expiry of his work permit, only to find that NAB had no job for him.  Sounds familiar?  Of Course NAB had offloaded it's UK pension liabilities onto the Yorkshire Clydesdale Pension Fund, so David is now proud to be a Yorkshire Bank pensioner and an avid reader of PLUS

     "My banking career started in the 1960’s withLloyds Bank on the Isle of Wight as a junior aged 17 or 18. I called myself a“bank labourer” at the time because of my duties. As a cashier, I had a regularrun service to a couple of village sub branches, which were only open 2 hours aday in the morning on 2 or 3 days. I had to take (& return) my till andfloat in a leather case on the public bus with a “guard” (an OAP!). Buses inthose days always ran and on time! This was before we had the luxury of a taxi!Some villagers sometimes asked me to take “items” back to the main branch fortheir friends to later collect. “Service” is a little different now.

 

Mid 1960’s banking was so different to today– and no computers and not all office calculators were even electric. We kept handwritten, loose leaf, savings account ledgers and all interest was manually calculated using “products” (static days times balance) every time there was an account movement and log table books used to covert the periodically added up product sums to LSD (£sp) amount of interest, before being manually added to the balance. Bank Rate changes (and half year & yearly activity) where murder as all account interest had to be calculated to date at the old amount – and everything double checked for accuracy by another. As January 1^st was a normal working day, everything used to have to be completed on 31^st December, including statements produced, ready for opening on the 1^st -usually a late night (overtime - yippee!)!

 

There were no pay grades. You got paid by age at whatever bank job you did. When earning £564 per annum I remember seeing the pay scale going up to £1031 at aged 31 (last change) and thinking what I could do with all that amount of money.

 

My local branch had the account of the local main Post Office. National Provincial Bank (now Nat West) had the account of the local authority, who paid in loads of cash. The Post Office needed cash for its branches to pay out OAP pensions etc – not so many bank accounts then. Cash was king.  Every Monday morning at 9am, 3 of us were dispatched to walk to Nat Pro to collect cash to be able fund the Post Office. I can tell you £20,000plus in £1 notes weights a ton. As the junior/bank labourer I had to carry it with 2 hands. I had a large, dog eared with use, leather suitcase and had to wear a dog lead type chain which went from the handle, up my sleeve and around my body. My fellow bank staff (always males!) carried whatever protective weapons they could find and hide up their sleeves or inside their suit jackets.

 

We were so lucky the Isle of Wight was a safe place and we were never attacked as this was a regular duty. Eventually (much to my relief) we were replaced by a security company whose staff wore uniforms, helmets and visors and carried large clubs. They travelled in an armoured car - whereas we used to have to walk down the High Street".

My apologies, perhaps, for including a tale from another bank, but I am sure many of you will see similarities with your own early life in YB