Pounds shillings and pence

[BarrelOfOtters]

im in my 50s, too young to remember decimilisation in 1971 but I know about pounds, Guineas, sixpence etc. 20 shillings = 1 pound. Pence (d) – 12 pence = 1 shilling. 240 pence = 1 pound.

colleague in his 20s had never heard of this. I mean surely mos5 people have seen it in a film or read a book set in the 60s?

or am I really just old.

I was in primary school when it changed over.even though I was only 7 or 8 we were taught to do sums using £sd, lbs & oz, yards & miles etc. I often thought about it when my children were the same age. I can't imagine anyone being asked to work in a mixture of base 12 & 20 or 14 & 16 etc!
I tend to measure most things in metric now, but still do distance in miles (odd that we've never changed), height in feet & inches & weight in stones & lbs (although I do know what 60kg is, for example). I cook in a mixture of both 😂

But at some point they will have to get used to reading books with dated money, and to understand the impact of inflation. When they come to read 'Pride and Prejudice' are they going to wonder why Darcy was regarded as really rich when his yearly income was less than NMW? Of course not.

I started school in 1971 and our maths books (anyone remember Alpha and Beta maths books?) were predominantly metric but did have an imperial section.

I can remember parking meters in Central Bristol being a way of withdrawing sixpence coins from circulation. DM always kept a stash of them in the glove compartment of her car.
By the time I was working in a high street bank in the mid 80s we were still seeing the occasional 10 shilling note. We were only allowed to exchange at face value, so 50p. My boss used to exchange them out again and take them to a local banknote collector where he would sell them for their antique value , which was a lot higher.

D-Day = how Decimal Day - 15.02.1971 was known at the time. That's why I put it in inverted commas, to make it clear I wasn't referring to the original D-Day.

Same here. We had lots of lessons at school to prepare us for the change. Used to get half a crown pocket money and a ten shilling note on birthdays! Also a sixpence to spend on sweets once a week when DGM picked us up from school.

Ha, fair enough. I remember Decimal Day, I don't remember anyone calling it D Day though.

I'm 40, I know about old money but never been interested enough to learn the denominations!

Ditto imperial measurements, I do everything in kg and km, can't be doing with inches and ounces. Don't know why we didn't go full decimal for everything at once really.

It was used in the promotional material of the time:

I'm in my late 40s and I'm aware of, but have never used £Sd. I'm a child of decimalisation.

Someone in their twenties will have never experienced the hang-over over of shilling and florin coins still circulating as legal tender (as 5 new pence and 10 new pence respectively). It's not relevant to them. Even if I come across it in a period film or novel, I don't have the frame of reference to know whether a price for an item given in shillings sounds right or not.

Britain needs to adjust it's frame of historical reference. The majority of the population haven't had direct experience of pre-decimal currency. The UK began adopting the metric system in 1962, and metric/SI units have been taught in schools for almost 50 years. I grew up with the Falklands, Bosnia, Challenger, Piper Alpha, Lockerbie, and 9/11. My parents generation grew-up with the Shadows and the Beatles, not Vera Lynn. We need to realise that history is more recent than we expect, and 'recent' history is longer ago than we'd care to think about.

I think you're getting old @BarrelOfOtters - still, it's better than the alternative.

She means D for Decimalisation Day.

My DH just told me there was a song: see plyric.com/max-bygraves-decimalisation

But many of us find this kind of thing fascinating - not just imperial currency, but 20th Century history in general - in the same way people might be fascinated by the Tudors or the Vikings or whatever. We shouldn't be erasing it from our culture.

It's not about erasing it. It's about accepting that there's a period of time between then and now that we should also consider history.

It's about not creating an entire national identity on one period of history and using the achievements of grandparents as a proxy for achievements we could be making ourselves. And it's about treating that period the same way we treat Tudors and Vikings, questioning and challenging the established narrative to avoid enshrining the propaganda.

What on Earth is imperial currency?

;To me it's a bit like when you read a book set in a different country and have to work out what certain things mean - or the context. I'd be curious enough about someone buying something in shilling or guineas to at least clock it as something different. So if anyone asked I might be able to dredge it up to say 'oh, yeah, I've heard of that.'

I can only assume that a young, reasonably well travelled, degree level guy has never come across pre decimalisation references. And was quite mind blown when he looked it up.

To all those saying he’s ignorant

can any of you explain why someone should be able to describe to relationships between defunct currency phased out around 30 years before they were born?

And what’s the value of being able to know how many shillings in a Guinea etc?

or are you just here to call someone names with no justification?

The subject of the whole thread!

240 pence. not 120.

ig·nor·ant
[ˈɪɡn(ə)r(ə)nt]
ADJECTIVE
lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated:
"he was told constantly that he was ignorant and stupid"
SIMILAR:
uneducated
unknowledgeable
untaught
unschooled
lacking knowledge, information, or awareness about a particular thing:
"I was largely ignorant of the effects of radiotherapy" · "school-leavers were ignorant about the range of job opportunities"
SIMILAR:
without knowledge
unaware
unconscious
insensible

He didn't know about it therefore he was ignorant of it. It's not necessarily a value judgement.

There were Imperial measurements. But the pre-decimal currency system isn't referred to as Imperial.

It's a valid question. And an interesting one when the claim is that someone else is ignorant just because it's never been relevant in their lifetime.

I was about 10 when we switched over to decimal currency, so had obviously been using shillings and pence for a few years. Not pounds, though, as nothing I was allowed to buy myself cost that much!

Guineas I have obviously heard of, but they have never featured in my life much beyond occasional references to them in old books - and I mean books that seemed ancient to me even when I was a child - so they have never meant anything to me in real life.

Some of the posts above from people of a similar age to me have made me think that perhaps my primary school was unusual, and was preparing us well in advance for the switch to decimal currency, because I don't recall ever doing maths exercises involving 'old money' at my school.

This subject makes me wonder how soon everybody will forget the coinage of Europe before they took on the Euro as their currency.

Not knowing something that was a big part of history makes me think how much do they know of the present world. The different countries and their boundaries, the capitals, their language or whether that is also irrelevant in this tech age 🙁

Yes, saying that someone is 'ignorant of' something means that they don't know it /are unaware of it.

However, simply saying describing someone as 'ignorant' is, in modern English, a value judgement, and derogatory.

Old money was how I first came to feel old myself. I was reading a book with my class and half a crown was mentioned in a text and then clearly explained in a footnote.
The class wanted to know more so I told them I used to get half a crown pocket money. In the end I put the names of coins on the board - farthings and ship halfpenny, pennies, threepenny pieces, sixpence, shillings, florins, half crowns, ten shilling notes...a real trip into the past. I had grown up with these.coins and felt like Methusala.

The.next day one of the children brought in a complete set of the coins lying on blue velvet and framed under glass. His grandfather had mounted the coins.I was nearly in tears at the rush of nostalgia that swept over me. So silly of me but they belonged to a different world.

Well for reference I meant ignorant in both it's meanings.