Dear LPG, 

A television programme I watched last week asked, ‘If you dropped coins on the pavement, what is the smallest denomination you would make an effort to pick up?’. The answer was inconclusive, but the consensus was that it would have much to do with the participants age.

We pensioners have lived long enough to see many changes regarding the money in our pockets. I know that when I was young, most people went to the shops with coins and paper money, which was relatively easy to deal with because while you gave some of it away, you could see what was left.  

When many of us older people think about spending money, we visualise the touch machine and our contactless debit or credit cards. The younger people are becoming a generation who point their mobile phones rather than reach into a purse, wallet or pocket for some change.  

When I see adverts on the television these days, while I know that everything has a relative cost, I have real problems hearing the price of products described as ‘only £xxx’ and, even more, worrying is the idea that if it is only so much a month that is being alluded to, that makes the cost seem somehow even cheaper. I know that inflation has to play its part, but have you noticed that so many more things are described in terms of how few pounds they cost rather than how few pennies they cost?

I admit to being one of those annoying people that take a purse with real money in it when I do my weekly shopping, and if there are a few odd pence when it is all totalled up, the queue has to wait while I have a rummage around in the cash compartment of my purse for the odd change. I am one of those people who refuse to use the supermarket self-checkout machines, but I hear that many do not accept 1p and 2p coins anymore. 

I recently read an article on your pages that made me smile on one level, but I have to say that, perhaps because I am old, I have a bit more respect for those little copper coins.  

To me, all money is valuable, and I am one of those people who would try to pick up a penny if I noticed it on the street. However, I did this when taking a walk in the park with some of the younger members of my family not so long ago, and I could see the hints of embarrassment flash across some of their faces.  

I also have a jar that I have been putting my odd pennies for a year or two now. I took it to St. Christopher’s Hospice, and it was so heavy that I needed to get my daughter to carry it for me this year because of the weight of it. 

The pandemic and lockdown have a lot to do with how we pay for things, and the result is that more and more of us are using plastic or electric power to part with our money.

If we stop using copper, it will be another commodity we lose, so I urge everyone to recognise that those little coins are the building blocks on which any wealth is based. I found evidence that the oldest coin ever found so far was minted in Lydia, Turkey, in about 600 BCE, and Oliver Cromwell might have been responsible for the oldest recorded British coinage back in 1656.  

So, I would argue that coinage has been around for well over 350 years in Britain. Let’s not allow pennies to become yet another tradition that becomes extinct.  

 BW, Sydenham

LPG found some related internet thoughts…

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