Saturday 16 May 2015

Getting into the habit of saving ......... the Post Office tin circa 1940s from Nostalgia just gets better nu 1

Now I know I have often said that nostalgia is a double edged exercise in which it is too easy to slide into a rosy glow of sentimentality about the past, but here is the first of an occasional series which celebrates the things we remember with affection.

This is from the collection of David Harrop and  is a replica of a King George V1 pillar box which doubled as a savings tin.

Now I never had one of these and instead was given one of those black and gold boxes with a little handle with a slot on the top.

And somewhere in the collection is my Post Office Savings Book which was opened in the mid 50s and which I think I last used in 1966.

The tin and the book point to that preoccupation parents have with getting their children to save and opens up a nice little bit of social history.

For those whose income was precarious and never had a bank account saving tins, and a whole range of self help groups offered a way of “putting a bit by.”

My favourite was the Penny Savings Bank which had a branch in Chorlton.

I say branch but it only met every Saturday between 6 and 7 in the old school on the green. According to the Bank “any sum may be deposited between One Penny and £50. When the account reached £1 it is transferred to the Manchester and Salford Savings Bank “

And in placing the Penny Savings Bank on the green “the Trustees and managers” were clear in their own minds that perhaps this area was more likely “to see a large increase in the number of depositors, and cottager’s domestic servants, and parents on behalf of their children.”

And that opens up the story of the two Chorltons, which is for another time

Picture; from the collection of David Harrop, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/David%20Harrop


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