Dear LPY

I would like to start by asking readers if they remember them, they meant a lot to me back in the day and I was a lot more used to seeing a wad of these red notes than the ones that are worth 20 times more, even though they were in circulation at the time.

I found this 10/- note in the back of a cupboard when clearing out and firstly thought that I was looking at an old £10.00 note, and then I took a closer look at it for old time sake.  The queen was much younger and Britannia was the only other person that featured back then. My next thought was about how long it had been hiding there.

It did not take long to work out that this note stopped being printed in 1969 in favour of the 50p coin; which even though it had the same face-value looked and was worth that much less to me.  I also found an online calculator which informed that the 10/- would be worth the equivalent of about £5.75 in today’s money, but back then 10/- would have bought well over a quarter of the weekly shopping for my family of six.   I have no doubt that it sounds as if 1969 was the dark ages to anyone under the age of 50 now but a lot happened that year.  I found a website or two which might remind some readers of what happened apart from the withdrawal of the 10/- note which makes interesting and nostalgic reading. 

Fifty years ago there was a war going on in Vietnam, it was the year that man landed on the moon and of the Woodstock festival, the children’s television program ‘Sesame Street’ was first shown, the first ever DIY B&Q superstore opened in the UK and the Simon and Garfunkel song ‘Bridge over troubled water’ was first released.

…and all that from the discovery of an old 10/- note… 

PB, Sydenham

LPG has shared the websites that PB found and we have also left readers a link to the Simon and Garfunkel song ‘Bridge over troubled water’.  

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