Plastic Money Truly Arrives - Barclays Connect - 1987

The Barclays Connect card - the original late 1980s design.

Credit cards had, of course, been available in the UK since the 1960s. These were considered terribly posh round my way. Nobody had one, nobody would have qualified to be allowed one, and we thought we'd never have any use for plastic money. Cash point cards might be offered to the middle classes upwards, some astute working class account holders, students and the like, but as most of the working classes had no bank account, did not go to university and had no money, they were no use to the banking system.

Until the late 1980s rolled around.

An announcement from October 1986. The future it now!

Look at these ads from May 1987 - part of a major outdoor poster campaign by Barclays, showing that whilst the cat was already well and truly out of the bag about past innovations, a brand new puss was going to burst upon the scene on June 3. It seems archaic now, but when I started work in 1982, I got paid weekly and in cash. The "pay packet" coming round each Thursday was much looked forward to. I didn't have a bank account. Nobody I knew did. Most of us common-as-muck types didn't. Bank accounts woz "posh".

I opened an account circa 1987, when I began a new job. My employer wanted to pay my salary directly into a bank account. 

And in 1988 I gained a Barclays Connect Card. Still have one. Felt very odd and rather wonderful at first. I flashed it around, seeing it as something of a status symbol (I hadn't worked out the difference between credit and debit cards then and must have looked a proper twit!). 

Within nine months of its arrival in 1987, Barclays was issuing its one millionth Connect Card, and by 1989 I was rapidly becoming one of the common herd again.

Shame!

Access - Your Flexible Friend

A newspaper advertisement for Bejam, December 1981. Nobody in my very working class neighbourhood even owned a freezer in 1981. Seems incredible now.

From the Sunday People, April 1985.

Here's Access and Money in another advertisement featured in the Radio Times, May 1985.

The blurb went: 

Go shopping without leaving home.

Nowadays you can pick up a phone and a bargain from the comfort of your own armchair. And using Access makes it even easier.Book your holiday over the phone with Access. Everything from rail and air tickets, to hotel bookings and car hire.

Many theatres, cinemas, pop concerts and sporting events accept Access over the phone, too - quote your name, number and address and that's it. What could be simpler? Or more convenient.

Credit cards seemed like something from the Planet Zog to me and my pals and family back then. You paid cash or bought from a mail order catalogue. There was no other way in our world.

I used to feel sorry for Money in the ads - he always seemed to end up flustered and out of sorts - he had an irritating voice, too.

Poor little git.

I never even used a cash point machine until some time after the UK's first debit card, Barclays Connect, was issued on June 3 1987. That sparked a revolution. Suddenly, plastic money and cash point machines were not just for those well off enough to own a credit card. Within nine months, Barclays was issuing its one millionth Connect Card.

I was a Barclays Connect man from around 1988 onwards.

Sorry, Access.

The New £1 Coin - And Other 1980s Brass In Pocket Innovations

Since the design, production and issuing of the first new decimal coins in the 1960s, and full decimalisation in 1971, not much had changed in the world of UK coins.

And then, in the early-to-mid 1980s, several changes occurred.

In 1980, the old sixpence ceased to be legal tender.

We gained the very first twenty pence coins in 1982.

Then, in 1983, we gained the very first pound coins.

And then, in 1984, the half penny ceased to be. It had been an unpopular coin for years, many people thought it not worth the bother. But still, some mourned its passing. One tabloid newspaper even published a full history of the half penny - going back centuries into the pre-decimal era.

The £1 coin, which would prove to be the death of the £1 note, was unveiled in 1982, although it would not become legal tender until 1983, and a fascinating "Public Opinion Special" in the Daily Mirror on March 10, 1982, revealed a mixed bag of opinion regarding the new coin - and what it should be called...

From the Mirror:

When Britain's new £1 coin was unveiled on February 10, we asked readers to send us their ideas for a name for the new coin. The response ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. Many reflected their dismay with the continuing drop in the value of the pound. Here is a selection of some of the many letters we received.

What's wrong with continuing to call it a pound? But if you REALLY want to know what I think about it, it's unprintable!

It's going to be a terrible nuisance. We already have to deal with bulky coins which don't fit into wallets.

I've already broken the clasps on two good ones and my husband is wearing away more trouser pockets than I care to count - Mrs O.F., Solihull, West Midlands.

The name that springs to mind is Joker. Looking like gold and calling itself a pound is a joke for a start, isn't it? - A.T., Redhill, Surrey.

A Monarch would be my choice. It has the flavour of sovereign about it but it is more original - Mrs G.R., Surrey.

We should follow the French example and call ours the Brit - R.P., Waltham Abbey, Essex.

I shall call the new quid a Thatcher. It will remind me that it was minted during the office of the worst Prime Minister this country has ever known - J.F., Northolt, Middlesex.

The new coin should be a tribute to the Princess of Wales.

An anagram of her name works out as Adina. It's attractive and easy to say. What could be more suitable than that! - Mrs B.S., Wilmslow, Cheshire.

Let's call it a Di! - Mrs E.K., Brackley, Northants.

Why not call it a "mite"? Judging by the size of it, you "mite" be able to find it among your small change and you just "mite" be able to buy something with it. Then again, you "mite" not! - T.C., Cleveland.

It should be called a Tory because, like the Tories, it's worthless! - B.C., Omagh, County Tyrone.

It should be called an Eliza, because you will be able to "Doolittle" with it! - W.S., Harlow, Essex.

Of course, despite all the little grey cells being exercised above, we called the new pound coin a pound. Or a quid. Just as we had the old notes.

Also in the 1980s world of loose change, we dropped the "New" from "New Pence" on the original decimal coins designed back in the 1960s.

Well, they weren't that new any more.

In 1986 the very first £2 coin was produced - to commemorate the Common Wealth Games, held that year in Edinburgh. This was purely a commemorative coin - not produced for mass circulation, as was the second £2 coin, struck in 1989, to celebrate the tercentenary of the English Bill Of Rights. Scotland had its own 1989 £2 coin to celebrate the tercentenary of its Claim Of Right.

"Hole In The Wall" - 1980s Slang For Cash Dispensers...

Appealing to the teens - NatWest, 1984.

Cash points began to become popular in the 1980s. But as for having a Mum that would always give you money when you wanted it - that was pure pie in the sky!

Susie has written to ask:

When did the slang "Hole In The Wall" come about to describe cash point machines at banks?

In the mid-1980s, Susie.

The first cash machine was installed in 1967, but a combination of little dosh, lack of interest and suspicion of new technology meant that it wasn't until the 1980s that these little beauties really began to impact on the great unwashed.

Barclays issuing the UK's first debit card, the Connect Card, on June 3 1987, quickened the ATM's journey into the mainstream no end. Suddenly, plastic money and cash points were not just for those rich enough to afford a credit card, students, etc.

We woz getting bank accounts (largely because our employers wanted to pay our wages into them as the decade progressed). And we could draw out our money when we wanted and pay with our debit card in the shops!

And also in the 1980s, banks were trying to be very trendy indeed and appeal to kids, school leavers and students (remember Griffin, voiced by Richard Briers?).

Trendy slang was inevitable.

The excellent book 20th Century Words, by Jon Ayto (Oxford, 1999), traced the origins of the "hole in the wall" slang to the mid-1980s:

hole-in-the-wall

noun (1985) an automatic cash dispenser installed in the (outside) wall of a bank or other building. Colloquial, mainly British.

The book provided an example of the usage of the slang in an extract from Today newspaper, 1987:

Three [banks], along with Royal Bank of Scotland... are set to unveil their joint hole-in-the-wall cash machine network.

The name I most remember being used to refer to the hole-in-the-wall of the mid-to-late 1980s and early 1990s was "cash point".

By the end of the 1980s, many people were still unfamiliar with cash points (my mother did not acquire a debit card until the mid-1990s and I know of many other people in my own neighbourhood who held off).

But they had certainly come a long way.

And many of us found it difficult to imagine life without cash on demand, day or night!

In more recent times, the "hole in the wall" name was trademarked by Barclays as part of an initiative to vanquish unnecessary jargon.

1985 - the fabulous Griffin - from the Listening Bank!

Yuppie!

My wife recently bought this 1986 work of fiction in a charity shop, thinking it might bring back a few memories of the mid-'80s era to me.

Diary Of A Yuppie is about a yuppie who likes making money, and having boardroom meetings, and eating lots of posh food, and wearing lots of posh clothes.

At least I assume it is. The first few pages certainly indicate it is.

In 1986, I was having the time of my life, dancing to the Pet Shop Boys and Nu Shooz, and wearing shoulder-padded jackets over cerise mesh vests. And I didn't wear socks - it was Miami Vice trendy not to (stupid fool - I wore canvas shoes and they rubbed nearly all the skin off my feet).

I was also trying to grow designer stubble (it simply made me look dog rough), glutting on hair gel and mousse, and fancying myself with blonde streaks. On top of all that, I was boozing and bedding like there was no tomorrow.

But I wasn't a yuppie. I was working like a dog at... I'll call it Primrose Cottage, a Social Services home for the elderly, so the experiences related in the book don't meld with my own, arouse no nostalgia, and so I've stopped reading after page four.

Also, it's American and I'm English. Bog standard, financially poor-as-can-be English at that.
The book's cover makes an interesting "sign of the times" for the blog, though!

20th Century Words by John Ayto, traces the yuppie name back to 1982 and defines a yuppie thus:

a member of a socio-economic group comprising young professional people working in cities of a type thought of as typifying the ethos of the 1980s: ambitious, go-getting, newly affluent, young, class-free, owing no debt to the past. Originally US; a hybrid word coined probably by grafting an acronym based on "Young Urban Professional" (or "Young Upwardly mobile Professional") on to a basic model suggested by hippie.

Some people, of course, spell it "yuppy".

I have read on-line that the yuppie word was first coined in 1981, whilst 20th Century Words, as seen above, traces it to 1982.
 
The yuppie acronym probably comes from Chicago. An article by Dan Rottenberg in a May 1980 Chicago magazine called "About that urban renaissance.... there'll be a slight delay" (which I've seen on-line, not in original print), is the first ever found to mention "yuppies" - however the name was simply applied to the upwardly mobile set, gentrifying certain areas, and the associated problems, not the Reagan/Thatcher adoring huge money makers of later in the decade. Those type of yuppies, the ones the tag are now associated with, were prevalent in the mid-to-late decade, and the yuppie tag "took off" during the early Reagan years - the US President was elected in November 1980 and inaugurated in January 1981.

In the UK, I think we started to move into our "yuppie era" around 1984. I remember 1980, 1981 and 1982 as being financially-poor-as-church-mice years. In 1983, things perhaps began to alter a little... and I think 1984 was getting distinctly upwardly mobile. Funnily enough, although people now like to categorise the entire 1980s as being "excess unlimited", I only remember the years 1984 to 1987 as being truly like that. Black Monday in 1987 sent out huge shock waves throughout the financial world, and in 1988 Acid House was distorting the 1980s' "stylish" image more than somewhat.

And '80s "stylish" garb (which I loved) and yuppies were far from being the full story from 1984 to 1987, either. Who could ever forget the Miners' Strike? The Left were very vocal, and environmental concerns were on the rise. I always recall the 1980s as being uproar. And that includes the "height of yuppiedom" years.

I've been having a little delve into the world of yuppiedom, and discovered that as well as plain and simple yuppies there were buppies (black yuppies), Juppies (Japanese yuppies), guppies (gay yuppies), green yuppies (environmentally concerned yuppies - tree hugging dosh chasers - amazing!) and "yuppie puppies" - (upwardly mobile kids, under twenty or the offspring of yuppies).

A yuppie with a yuppie toy in the 1980s - a brick mobile phone. Yuppies also liked filofaxes and wine bars. Oh, yes, I almost forgot - and money.

"Hello, darling, it's me. Listen, I've got a meeting with the chairman of the board in twenty minutes, and my shoulder pads have gone all funny..."