We've seen it all before: tabloid panics about chaos, confusion and profiteering. Tony Levene looks back to going metric in 1971
The Guardian - United Kingdom; Dec 22, 2001
BY TONY LEVENE
[Note from pb: I remember the UK penny decimal conversion well. Prices shot up because, in reality, people only round up, never down. The knock on effect throughout the whole chain was considerable]
Confusion, chaos and catastrophe - they're just some of the milder epithets thrown at the great cash changeover by the tabloids.
The popular press is full of stories about profiteering through rounding up; columnists work themselves into a state over how old folk will cope; and there is huge nostalgia for the loss of historic markers of proud nationhood.
But we're not talking the euro and 2002. Instead, we're talking about the UK's decimalisation project three decades ago. This replaced pounds, shillings and pence with pounds and "new" pence.
Both before and after "D-Day" - February 15, 1971 - scares and fears dominated media coverage. And there are uncanny parallels with the predictions of what will happen in the eurozone once the clock passes midnight on January 1.
The Conservatives were. . . well, the party of conservation. Before the big coin changeover, the Tories, then in opposition, launched a Commons censure motion which "regrets the system of decimalisation of the currency."
But the Conservative love of the pound was shaky. In 1970, they wanted to abandon it in favour of a unit based on 50p - a view shared by the Daily Telegraph. And it was under Ted Heath's Conservative government that the changeover took place.
There was a "save the sixpence (2.5p)" campaign. It was successful, although largely irrelevant, as "tanners" swiftly fell out of circulation.
Journalists vied with each other to spend the last half-crowns - the 12.5p coins taken out of circulation in December 1969.
The usual assortment of taxi drivers, newspaper vendors and coffee shop proprietors within drinking distance of Fleet Street were all roped in to see if they would take the old coin just minutes ahead of its withdrawal. Banks would, in fact, change them for many months after.
The same "usual suspects" were tested again when the new coins came in.
Marks Spencer, which will now accept euros in many branches, said it would take Isle of Man ten-shilling (50p) notes - favoured by those who did not like the new-fangled seven-side 50p coins.
The Daily Mail, which is currently warning of eurocreep, praised the Manx note, which came "from a government older than Westminster and better able to indulge democratic whims."
Above all, there were tabloid panics that we'd all go "decimal-dotty". And they were right:
<= 50 Yorkshire children on a school bus were driven off to a police station after they refused to pay 5p for a ticket they had calculated at 3p - the kids were correct.>
<= Milkmen ran into trouble converting prices. There was outrage when the price for one pint was rounded up, and then the cost of a pint a day was rounded up again.>
<= The newly formed Women's Association for Stabilising Prices (Wasp) warned housewives against "thinking decimal" as it was inflationary.>
<= London libraries were accused of profiteering on fines.>
<= Surveys found pricing errors all over the place - but the Consumers' Association said most were in favour of shoppers.>
<= The new coins jammed payphones.>
<= A 75-year-old Norfolk woman blamed decimal currency >conversion in her suicide note.
Despite well-publicised problems, decimalisation turned out to be a piece of cake. An 18-month changeover period was allowed for, but the old currency mostly disappeared within a few weeks - although a few shops kept pounds, shillings and pence for years. The Decimal Currency Board declared itself redundant after six months.
The pound was unchanged; shillings translated neatly into 5p so only small change items were affected - although there were more goods you could buy with coppers then.
And shops and banks soon forgot how they were forced to shoulder much of the cost of the changeover - over the next five years inflation doubled prices.
The euro could be tougher. Unlike decimalisation, every amount will change. And only the equivalent of Carol Vorderman could convert 6.55957 French francs into one euro in her head.
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