Paying for things

When I left school one of the first things I needed to do was to get a bank account which at the time wasn't an automatic thing as many manual workers were still paid  in cash  but the type of work I was looking for had for a number of years moved over to payment through the banking system.

One major consideration was accessibility as where I lived there wasn't a high street bank and back then stuff like internet banking was a pipe dream rather like the internet itself.

I decided on what then was called National Girobank, a branch of the General Post Office because you could make withdraws and run your account from your local post office and there weren't any operating costs  one of several innovations it introduced to UK banking.

One perk was the slimline magazine that you got through the mail for free that told you about banks services but also featured a section on consumer rights and a number of reader offers for things such as fashion and so on. It's name was Giroscope and I always looked forward to seeing it coming packed with my statement.

Sadly when it was taken over by Alliance and Leicester who in turn were taken over later on by Santander, this stopped but I've never really forgotten about it.

Another thing that helped with was paying for photography stuff as at one point I'd either have to draw out cash from the bank to pay in store or leave a cheque which may need to wait for clearance before I could take home my purchase.

I was able to get a debit card that meant not only could I draw cash from machines but also I could use it to pay for purchases in store cutting out the clearance delays  which also coincided with the increased amount of mail order activity for things like used lenses that made tracking and paying easier than relying on say the local Jessop branches, shuffling stock between stores.