Decimalization

[planenut]

Fifty years since our currency changed from sterling to decimal. At the time it was the biggest nationwide operation created and ironically now we are in an equally big operation, the vaccination programme.

For me, decimalization was massive, being in College I made it my presentation to everybody, giving me an opportunity to get my head round it and a chance to educate all the students and staff. Very well received.

I do have a small coin collection which includes both pre- and post Decimalization coins. For me the half-crown was my favourite, what a piece of treasure.

[Lancpudn]

As an apprentice tool setter at the local engineering works I remember the bewilderment on faces when Friday the first pay day came around with the wage packets lol Me included.


I bet Rev Jules has a stocking full of white fivers & coinage from the 18th century when he started work

[macafee2]

Then the change from pints and gallons, pounds and ounces to litres, kilograms and grams.
We seem to have also gone from feet and inches to metres and millimetres and to metric threads.
My god I home they keep the mile!

Perhaps for international engineering reasons it was "right" to align with others but as an individual, I'm not unhappy with imperial.

macafee2

[FLYING BANANA]

I worked in a supermarket at the time of the change over. We spent the night before changing all the prices on the stock plus on the shelves. Anything ending in a halfpenny was rounded up, nothing went down.

When we opened for business on the Monday we had to explain to the customers about the changeover but failing to mention the rounding up of prices.

[coolguy]

It was particularly confusing to have both currencies running together for a while. I am sure I still have the original leaflet somewhere as I never throw anything away and haven't moved house in nearly 70 years!

[wraymond]

I, too, was in supermarkets at the time. Had to work over the weekend before 'D' day as well as the previous weekend to introduce the system to the staff.

Can't remember even one shelf item that either went down in price or even remained unchanged. The cost to the company was huge and they had to recoup it somehow. Even so, I still think of things and measure for projects in Imperial terms. Oh, and don't get me started on the two temperature scales.

Funny though, how we still use 'psi' on tyres!

[Dorset Bob]

I personally think that the old imperial money system of £ s d, was a brilliantly thought out system.

The system allowed the pound to be divided far more readily than the metric system.
If you divide a pound by 2 you get 10 shillings
By 3 you get 80d = 6s 8d
By 4 it is 5s
By 5 it is 4s and so on

The metric system falls over as soon as you get to 3, as it becomes 3.3333 recurring.

Of course if you want metric there are 10 florins to to pound (2 bob bits).

Originally Posted by macafee2

My god I home they keep the mile!

Perhaps for international engineering reasons it was "right" to align with others but as an individual, I'm not unhappy with imperial.

macafee2

They might with the statute mile, but I don't believe that they will ever get rid of the nautical mile.
Ships and aircraft use this because the circumference of the world is divided by 360 degrees. Each degree is split into 60 seconds and one of these is a nautical mile.
360 x 60 = 21,600, which is the circumference of our planet.

Then there is a knot, which gives the speed related in time and again is an imperial system, having 12 hour or 24 hour clocks divided into 5 dozen minutes.
Again a big plus, due to how the units can be divided.

I believe that the French, who dislike the imperial system, tried to invent a metric clock with 10 hours in a day divided into 100 minutes.
The idea was quickly dropped as they kept missing each other at various times down the restaurants

[gnu]

I prefer metric: more logical. I don’t actually remember using the old currency, maybe I was too young. I do remember tacking imperial engineering drawings though.

That’s my tuppenny’s worth...

[Dorchester2]

Even I'm French (yet my maternal granddad was British born and his family came from Dorset) I did love the old currency when I was sent living in England to learn English in the 60s.
I feel a bit nostalgic and as I was a coin collector, I remember going to the bank asking for one £ in... pence and the cashier unruffled giving me back a bag full of old pennies. Then back in my room I was carefully searching among that heap of copper the years I hadn't got yet!
And guess what? I've got them all still today with an old 1807 half penny that came to me by heritage and lots of others, farthings, six pence, shillings, half-crowns & even a few sovereigns.
I agree with you @planenut: I do love half-crowns as well.
And believe it or not, when Britain went for the decimal system, I sincerely feel that we've lost a slice of ... poetry! But as a collector, I've bought a mint 1971 first emission in its hard plastic package.

But when my first host family - they were so lovely - kindly asked me my weight in stones and my size in feet & inches, I was fully bewildered!
Happy days...

[WillyHeckaslike]

Originally Posted by Dorchester2

But when my first host family - they were so lovely - kindly asked me my weight in stones and my height in feet & inches, I was fully bewildered! Happy days...

Your use of first host family is intriguing, to me at least. Is there a story behind this?