MK Today - Friday 14th April 2023

When His Majesty recently visited Milton Keynes did he pay cash or use a silly ap on his smart phone to pay for parking ?

Three weeks tomorrow will be the coronation of King Charles III. Money is now being issued with his proudly on display. Will the reign of our monarch see the end of cash. His mother’s reign, that of our Late Queen Elizabeth II saw the ridiculous decimalisation of pounds, shillings and pence, saw the demise of the £1 note and paper money transformed into plastic.

In my book Milton Keynes The City Of Legend I talk about the role our city had within money. Let me now share that chapter with you:

Now here is a Milton Keynes Legend I bet none of you have ever heard of. Let’s see shall we.

TV comedy Birds of a Feather, first broadcast  in 1989. That’s before I wrote Not The Concret

e Cows ! Darryl Stubbs and Christopher Theodopolopodus are banged up for six years following an armed bank robbery. Where was their fictional bank robbery staged ?

Newport Pagnell ! See I said I doubted you had ever heard of that legend. Well now you know don’t you.

Newport Pagnell, are there any banks left in Newport Pagnell today ? Entirely by chance ahead of my writing this chapter I found myself in Queensway, Bletchley where I found that Barclays Bank has closed down and been kicked back into the bunk of history. When those fictional bank robbers were about they would have had the choice of two Barclays Banks, one either end of Queensway. (Since writing that paragraph even more banks have closed their doors !)

If armed robbers Stubbs and Theodopolopodus were to enter any bank, if they can find one that is, they are unlikely to find any money to nick. We live in a cashless society and that is not a good thing is it ?

Step aside from TV situation comedy and enter the real world. When banks used real money Milton Keynes was a vital part of the system operating that money.

Barclays had its area head office in Central Milton Keynes. Barclays Bank’s stationery department was to be found in Bletchley, just up the road from where the Bletchley Gazette had its office. All gone.

Up the road to Wolverton where you would find Maxwell Communications and Pergamon Press printing pension books and postal orders in a special security factory. All gone.

Over to Kiln Farm where there was a large unit sending out every day a fleet of vans to collect cheques paid into banks right across the region. Back in Milton Keynes these cheques were sorted and returned to their issuing banks. Nobody uses cheque today. All gone.

In the third decade of the twenty-first century large stores and supermarkets do not like cash. Why ? Because they have to pay someone to count the coins. It would appear that supermarkets do actually like pound coins which fit into their trolley locking devices. What will they do when pound coins are all gone ? Stick a silly smart-phone app in their place ?

Abbey National, now rebranded Santander, had its headquarters in Milton Keynes. Santan-whatever-it-is has just erected a new giant office block which complied completely with Milton Keynes Council’s deforestation planning strategy, no building shall be shorter than its surrounding trees. Nowhere near Santan-thingy to plant a tree anyway.

When the fictional Darryl Stubbs and Christopher Theodopolopodus were robbing banks how many banks were there in those adolescent years of Milton Keynes within the borders of our New City. Many more than we have today.

Roy Orbison, when was the last time you saw him walking up and down the penny arcade ?

Penny for your thoughts, shouldn’t that be a case today of tap your card on top of your head ?

Well in the days when money was real Milton Keynes was an important part in its cashflow.

One last thought. Alan Turing, when you and your mates finished cracking enigmas at the end of the day and you nipped into The Three Trees Pub for a pint or two did your code breaking machine have its own special app you used to pay the landlord ?