Little Chef - what was Ice Diamond?

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

dh and I don't remember and google is not helping! What on earth was Ice Diamond?

Yes, I see what you mean - it was intended for post-conversion, I think, so people could make sense of the new prices until they acquired an 'instinctive' sense of whether "20p" or "35p" was good value.

A big selling point of the change was that the value of the £1 was unchanged - it was just divided into different units. However, swingeing inflation caused by the oil crisis of 1973 soon caused the value of the £1 to fall in real terms. Deja vu anyone?

Sorry - what I meant to say was 'Thank you!' 🙄 Dunno what's the matter with me at the moment. You've explained it all really well. The whole process was fascinating, and I'm now off to try and find the public information video of Doris Hare's 'grandson' explaining it to her.

Oh, there's some fabulous 'D-Day' stuff on YouTube. Have fun!

ODOFx - thank you! That sounds like it would exactly fit. It must have been terrible to have all evidence erased of it on the internet

Lethimhaveit that made me snort. It's exactly the sort of thing I do. I get interested in something, then forget to engage my politeness filter.

This conversation is turning out even more interesting than just the answer to my original query.

I'm obsessed with this subject so I didn't find lethim's post strange!

I find it interesting that the plan was for everyone to call the new money 'new pence' but the public quickly decided on 'p' as the preferred suffix, as this was how shopkeepers designated the new money (old pence had been 'd').

That was an interesting video! I hadn't realised it had been a two staged introduction of the new coins.

Was the 1/2p considered small enough? What was the equivalent? I remember mojos and blackjacks (sweets) were 1/2p each in about 1980

1/2p was worth more than the old 1 penny - 240 old pennies to the £1 versus 200 1/2ps to the £1. 1/2p then was worth about 7p in today's money, I think. By the time I was old enough to have pocket money in the late 70s, you could still buy 1/2p chews but inflation was rapidly eroding its value, and fewer and fewer things were being priced with a 1/2p.

With the value of the £1 staying the same, if it had been done in 2021 not 1971, the impact would have been less - as relatively fewer things are priced in increments lower than £1 - but back in 1971, the difference what your grocery shop 'looked like' would have been a lot different.

There's a good scene in 'Life on Mars' (set in 1973) where one of the officers concluded robbery hadn't been a motive in a murder as there's (something like) 23p left in the victim's purse. Sam Tyler fresh from 2005 says 'Who would steal 23p?' to be met with a chorus of 'I would!' from the 1973 officers.

I worked in a couple of little chefs as a student. It was awful. Just sayin. No pleasant nostalgia here.

Little Chefs were fantastic, far better than all the fast food "restaurants" today. Some of my favourite childhood memories were in Little Chef, Happy Eater or Wimpy.

Wow - that's a blast from the past! Looks like the same menu they had in the 90s when I used to visit.