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Granny reduced to tears over demise of LSD


A few shillings short: barmy grandmother is reduced to tears at the prospect of losing the ten-bob note

I was still a tot when the UK converted to decimal currency, so don't have a vivid memory of the propaganda campaign that was waged by the government to win people over to the new system.

This video is more than a public information film. It seems to be an excerpt from a full-scale drama in which a family lives out the trauma of 'D-Day' in 1971. (Given that many people at that time had vivid memories of the war, perhaps it wasn't the best choice of name.)

The young lad of the family knows where the future lies and his glamorous older sister is taking everything in her stride. Mum's all of a dither and looks as if she might need a man to help her out when she goes shopping with the new coins. But it's gran who's causing us the most worry. She seems prone to tears at the prospect of decimalisation and we get the impression she might take to her bed for the next month or two.

When the saucy milkman knocks to collect his weekly dues (think of Bob Grant's conductor in On The Buses), everything gets on top of her. Which is what one fears the milkman might like.

A glorious curio from a bygone era.

If anyone knows, incidentally, why some shops were allowed to continue to trade in LSD after the conversion date, please do post a comment.

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  1. JH10:45 AM

    My own grandmother up near Edinburgh continued to refer to shillings until her death in 1994, and since a lot of the one- and two-bob coins *still were exactly that* nobody really minded.

    5p coins still said 'one shilling' on them and there were still 20 of them to the pound. 10p similar. I remember some 50p coins said ten shillings on the back too.

    So long as you didn't try to dive down to pennies it was all fine. Indeed - still is...

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