TAKE NOTE...
Paper money is soon to become obsolete, and there are billions of pounds worth still out there – so cash in now or risk losing out, says HARVEY JONES
Your Money
AT THE end of next month, your old paper £20 and £50 pound notes will no longer be legal tender, and the message is simple – use them or lose them.
The Bank of England will withdraw their legal tender status after September 30. Once that deadline has passed, shops and businesses won’t accept them.
So it’s time to start checking whether you have any kicking around the house.
You might have one or two in an old purse or wallet, a jacket or trouser pocket, the glove box of your car or stuck behind the sofa.
Alert older friends or family members who prefer to use cash, says Alina Jaffer, financial expert at Virgin Money: “They may not be aware of the upcoming deadline.”
We aren’t talking about small change here. The BOE estimates there are still more than 300 million paper £20 banknotes worth more than £6bn in circulation, and another 160 million paper £50 notes, worth more than £8bn.
With a total value of £14bn, it is big money, so don’t squander it.
Pound notes no longer in your pocket
Every so often, the Bank of England introduces new notes, and shortly after, phases out the old ones.
Sometimes they are scrapped altogether, such as £1 notes, which were withdrawn in 1988, and replaced by the pound coin.
All bank notes feature Queen Elizabeth II on the front, and a famous historical figure on the back.
The last bank note to be withdrawn was the £10 Series E, which featured famous naturalist Charles Darwin.
It was first issued on November 7, 2000 and ceased to be legal tender on March 1, 2018. Before that, the £5 Series E showing Quaker prison reformer Elizabeth Fry was pulled from circulation on May 5, 2017.
From the end of September, they will be joined in the monetary history books by the economist Adam Smith, who features on the £20 note, and 18th-century engineers Matthew Boulton and James Watt, who share top billing on the £50 note.
Paper £20 notes started to be withdrawn from circulation on February 20, 2020, the same date that the polymer £20 featuring the artist JMW Turner entered circulation.
Paper £50 notes were withdrawn from June 23, 2021, replaced by the polymer £50 note featuring Enigma code-breaking scientist Alan Turing.
The BOE has had less time to withdraw these paper £50 notes, which is why relatively more remain in circulation.
The Turing £50 means that all denominations – £5, £10, £20 and £50 – are now printed on polymer, a synthetic material that is both more durable and harder to counterfeit.
Protective features include two see-through windows, raised print and a two-colour, high-tech security foil. The new notes are being dispensed by ATMS, banks and building societies, and Post Offices across the country.
Old coins get withdrawn too. The old “round pound” stopped being legal tender on October 15, 2017, replaced by the new 12-sided one.
Are paper notes being withdrawn everywhere?
Paper notes will be withdrawn across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
So in Scotland, paper £20 and £50 notes issued by Clydesdale Bank,
Royal Bank of Scotland and Bank of Scotland will no longer be legal tender after September 30, 2022.
The same applies to paper £20 notes issued by Bank of Ireland, Northern Bank Limited (which trades as Danske Bank), and Ulster Bank.
How to recognise which notes are being withdrawn
Paper banknotes feel different to polymer ones. The old £20 is purplish in colour, has Adam Smith’s face and signature, and a quote from him saying: “The division of labour in pin manufacturing (and the great increase in the quantity of work that results).”
The £50 is grey, orange and red, and features Matthew Boulton on the left with the quote: “I sell here, Sir, what all the world deserves to have – POWER.”
On the right, there’s a picture of James Watt and the following quote: “I can think of nothing else but this machine.”
Their fame may live on but they no longer have a place in our pockets.
Spend, spend, spend… or save
Your old paper £20 or £50 notes are still legal tender and will be accepted until September 30.
Shops cannot refuse them before that date. If you don’t want to spend them, you can go to the local branch of your bank and deposit them into your account.
Given the pace of branch closures, if you don’t have one nearby, try your local Post Office. It will accept withdrawn notes as a deposit into any bank account you can access through its Everyday Banking service.
This allows customers who have an account with one of a list of major banks to pay in cash or cheques, withdraw money or check their balance at their local Post Office counter.
You can find a full list of banks on the scheme at postoffice.co.uk/ everydaybanking.
Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and Natwest all participate, as well as Bank of Ireland, Bank of Scotland, the Co-op, Santander, Starling, TSB and Virgin Money, plus a number of smaller banks, and Nationwide Building Society.
Some people may be tempted to hang on to old notes for sentimental reasons, or the hope that they will rise in value over time. This is highly unlikely though. With a few exceptions, typically those with low or symbolic serial numbers, most bank notes are only worth face value, which inflation will erode over time anyway.
The Charities Aid Foundation suggests that people who miss the deadline could give old notes to their favourite good cause.
Larger charities are likely to continue to accept older notes even if no longer legal tender.
Don’t panic if you miss the deadline
Your old paper £20 or £50 notes are still legal tender and will be accepted until September 30
You can still convert your old paper banknotes into legal tender, and any other discontinued ones you find, after September 30.
It takes a bit more effort though as many banks will no longer accept or exchange withdrawn paper notes or coins. Some still will, with Barclays, Halifax, Lloyds, Nationwide, Natwest and Santander all telling website moneysavingexpert.com that customers can deposit old coins and notes into their accounts.
Otherwise, you may be able to deposit them at the Post Office.
If that doesn’t work, you can always exchange old series notes and coins with the Bank of England, which honours every bank note ever printed.
You can either visit its premises in the City of London, or send by post: Dept NEX, Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, London EC2R 8AH. You send banknotes in the post at your own risk and will not get reimbursed if they go astray or are stolen.
Complete a postal exchange form for individuals (or businesses if relevant) and send it with your notes and photocopies of your ID as proof of identity.
This should be one photo ID, such as your passport, and one proof of address, say a recent bank statement or utility bill. Do not post original ID documents.
The BOE will pay money into your bank account, normally within 10 working days. It can also pay by cheque or, if you live in the UK and your exchange is worth up to £300, in new banknotes. It won’t send banknotes overseas. For payments to an overseas bank account, please provide the BIC/ SWIFT Code and IBAN or account number. The Bank can only pay into accounts that accept sterling (GBP), and all payments must be sent via SWIFT transfer. It does not charge for this service, but your bank might.
If you’re in the area, you can visit the BOE in person at the Bank of England Counter, Threadneedle Street, London, EC2R 8AH. It is open from 9.30am to 3pm Monday to Friday. However, you can expect long queues and waits of more than an hour.
For further details on returning notes, see the Bank of England website – bankofengland.co.uk
A LOT of people are very upset with Instagram of late.
As the service transitions from a photo-sharing app, to centre itself around short-form video, those who signed up for the photo sharing bit are none too happy.
But there are alternatives if you just want to look at other people’s pics.
Here are four to try – two are very new and two are old, but all have thriving and vibrant communities.
GLASS
They say: Glass is your home for photography. We’re private and member-supported.
We say: An app that was actually created out of the frustration felt about so many photo-sharing services, Glass is as simple as could be. What you have is a simple timeline of photos from people you follow in chronological order.
You can comment on photos, and send the poster ‘appreciation’, but there are no public stats. It’s a paid service, so no ads.
There’s no Android version of the app at the moment, but the web version is so fast and simple, that isn’t a problem.
Cost: £4.49/month, £25.99/year.
BEREAL
They say: Bereal is the simplest photo sharing app to share once a day your real life in photo with friends.
We say: If they’re not scrolling, slack-jawed through Tiktok posts, today’s youngsters are very likely to be checking out their pals’ Bereal posts.
It exists as a kind of anti-instagram. The whole point, as the name suggests, is to be real. The app alerts all users at the same moment that it’s time to post – and then you have two minutes to snap and upload.
The image captures not only what you are looking at, but also an image from the selfie camera, too. You can then scroll through all the pics your friends have posted to see what they’re up to, and react with a pic of your face…
The next day this happens all over again, and all the pics from yesterday are replaced with new ones (your posts are archived for only you to look back on).
Cost: Free
FLICKR
They say: Join the largest, most influential community of photographers in the world.
We say: Of course, Flickr is not new. In fact it was the first photo sharing service to go gangbusters in the early days of Web 2.0.
Founded in 2004 in Vancouver, it grew large enough within a year to be acquired by the then internet giant Yahoo! That union did not go well, however, and without proper investment Flickr was unable to compete with Instagram when it arrived in 2010.
Now owned by fellow-image hosting service Smugmug, Flickr continues to boast a vibrant community.
Cost: Pro account: £6.99/month, £59.99/year
TUMBLR
They say: Old internet energy. Home of the Reblogs. All the art you never knew you needed. All the fandoms you could wish for. Add to it or simply scroll through and soak it up.
We say: Tumblr might not be exclusively for photos, but sharing their snaps is what a lot of people use it for.
Tumblr was another service bought by Yahoo! And then more or less abandoned. It has since been picked up by Automattic – the company that owns and runs Wordpress… the software on which around 40% of the world’s websites are built.
Tumblr is very much a throwback to the wild west days of the web, and as such can be a confusing, while also exciting, place to do your scrolling.
Cost: Ad-free: £4.49/month, £35.99/year
IT’S being billed as Breaking Bad collides with The Good Life in a psychedelic true story from the hillsides of rural Wales.
TV fans will understand the programme references, but for those who don’t goggle the box it’s not an over-statement to say that a new musical coming to Carmarthen next week is one of the most jaw-dropping true stories ever to come out of Wales.
Neath-based Theatr na nóg have produced Operation Julie - A Rock Musical.
It runs from Wednesday, August 31, to Friday, September 2, at The Lyric Theatre in Carmarthen.
The musical, which has already had a successful run at Aberystwyth Arts Centre, centres around a famous west Wales drugs bust which made international headlines back in the 1970s.
It was hardly a typical drugs bust. When police from around the country swooped before dawn on Tregaron one morning in 1977, dozens of the 800 officers working the case looked like unshaven, longhaired hippies plucked from the audience of a Led Zeppelin rock gig.
The vast LSD co-operative they were targeting was, if anything, even more unconventional.
Its leading members included doctors, scientists and university graduates - motivated, they insisted, by an evangelical drive to transform human consciousness itself.
Operation Julie is described as an anarchic play with music from the ‘70s prog-rock era. It tells the incredible story of the undercover operation that smashed one of the most extraordinary drug rings the world has ever seen.
Operation Julie is an English language production, with some Welsh content.
There’s age guidance advice attached to the production: 16+ or 14+ with parental consent.
You can get tickets from The Lyric box office or from the Theatrau Sir Gar website at https:// www.theatrausirgar.co.uk/
Meanwhile, the countdown is well and truly on to Côr Meibion Llanelli’s welcome return to the concert stage.
The ‘boys’ of Côr Meibion Llanelli will be topping the bill at a charity concert at Morfa Social Club, affectionately known by all in Llanelli as ‘The Tin Hut’.
It is being held at 7pm on Saturday, September 10. All proceeds will go to the Llanelli Hospital Charity (Prince Philip Hospital) and the Wales Air Ambulance.
Supporting the choir will be Côr Curiad ladies choir and well-known west Wales band Otherside.
Tickets are £7 and available from any Côr Meibion Llanelli chorister or via the following phone numbers - 01554 741027, 01554 749556, 01554 810004.
Finally, two major classical concerts will take place next week in the stunning surroundings of St Davids Cathedral as part of the 2022 Fishguard and West Wales International Music Festival.
Welsh pianist Llŷr Williams makes a welcome return to the festival with a recital of music by Haydn, Schumann, Rachmaninov and Liszt.
Widely admired for his profound musical intelligence and for the expressive and communicative nature of his interpretations, he regularly appears at prestigious venues and festivals, and has performed with all of the major UK orchestras.
Earlier this year he made his Madrid recital debut and returned to North America to the Capital Region Classical series in Montreal.
Llŷr Williams will be in concert on Thursday, September 1, at 7.30pm.
The festival has this year commissioned composer Geraint Lewis to write a short work for the Marian Consort as part of their concert programme on Tuesday, August 30, at the cathedral.
The Marian Consort is a vocal ensemble that performs music from the 15th century to the present day.
Critically acclaimed for their bold and thrilling performances across the UK, Europe and North America, they have released 12 recordings and are frequent guests on BBC Radio
3.
Gillian Green, artistic director of the festival, said: “The Marian Consort are calling their concert ‘Music of the Sistine Chapel’. It was therefore important to commission a composer who was familiar with the music of Palestrina and other composers of the era. Cardiff-born Geraint Lewis has composed around 150 works in nearly all genres including a community opera and a choral symphony. He was commissioned to write ‘Afallon’ for the Welsh National Opera Chorus to sing at the opening of the National Assembly for Wales in 1999. I am delighted that he has accepted the commission which will receive its world premiere at the Cathedral.”
Tickets available for all events at www.fishguardmusicfestival.com.
■ Get in touch if your choir has resumed rehearsals or if you have news you would like to share about your choir or events. Email: robert. lloyd01@ walesonline. co.uk