Bournemouth...Britain’s best beach
Taking the crown from the thruppence, the rose from the sixpence and the wren from the farthing, the Royal Mint is marking today’s 50th anniversary of decimalisation with a new commemorative coin...
OH we do like to be beside the seaside! And millions of us think the beaches at home are among the best in the world, naming Bournemouth our favourite.
The coasts around the Southwest had a golden moment in a survey. Three Cornish beaches made the top 10 – St Ives, Newquay and Bude – while Yorkshire batted well for the North with Whitby and Filey among the highest rated.
The research also found threequarters of us consider the beach to be an iconic British landscape – but a third believe seaside holidays here are underrated by others. The poll for WWF-UK and Sky Ocean Rescue discovered half of UK beach lovers are fans because of the coast’s magic powers – giving a sense of freedom, clearing heads and de-stressing.
Two-thirds of us feel a strong emotional connection with the coast and have missed it this lockdown. WWF-UK marine expert Sarah Young said the survey heralded the start of an ocean hero campaign to protect our heritage. She said: “We hope millions will join us to show they care.”
DOWN at the Royal Mint, coin designer Dominique Evans has been in seventh heaven immersing herself in the nostalgia of our longlost but not forgotten old currency: pounds, shillings and pence. What started out as a project to design a commemorative 50 pence coin to mark the 50th anniversary of the switch to decimalisation on February 15, 1971, quickly became an allengrossing labour of love.
Looking at and touching the beloved old coins, Dominique found herself marvelling at the design work involved in the old threepenny bit and the sixpence – or the tanner as some people called it – and found her imagination running wild.
“You start to think, what did that coin do before it met you,” says Dominique, or Dommie as she is known. “Did it buy an ice cream on Brighton Pier? Did it pay for a bus ride on the 109 to Streatham? Was this sixpence used to toss a coin at the start of a football match? Or did it buy a bunch of roses for a loved one?
“They’ve all been passed from hand to hand, so they’ve all been part of so many stories. For me it’s fascinating to think what the coins in your hand have actually experienced. I think this is why coins are still so loved.”
Immersing herself in the old coinage, Dommie had to figure out how to pay a fitting homage to “the greats”, all on one side of a modern, heptagonal 50 pence piece.
But her brilliant design should delight currency traditionalists as she’s managed to pull off the impossible and bring all the history back to life on a modern coin in a beautiful celebratory montage.
Sadly the coins won’t be available to the general public as they’ve been made as a commemorative edition only.
FROM the old penny Dommie took Britannia’s head, the crown symbol from threepenny pieces, the rose from the sixpence, the wren from the farthing and the lion from the one shilling piece.With the ship from the halfpenny and the thistle and shamrock from two-shilling pieces she was well on her way.
“I really enjoyed studying them then drawing out the designs,” she recalls. “It was really like doing a jigsaw. You have all the pieces in front of you and you have to work out where they go.
“There was a lot of jiggery-pokery, which is why coin design is so great. You have all these little problems to solve.”
Staring at her sketchings, she found herself discovering what old generations have known all their lives: pounds, shilling and pence really was a special British currency.
“I like to start with big sketches and then bring them down to size,” Dommie explains. “I’m very fond of the rose on the sixpence but I think my favourite has to be the wren on the threepence.
“The design was so small and yet so simple, it all and captures the bird beautifully. Funnily enough I was with my mum in the car when I saw a wren flying by. I recognised it because of the work I’d been doing on the coins. I said to mum, ‘there’s a wren, there’s a wren,’ but I couldn’t tell her why I was so excited because we’re not allowed to talk about our work. You forget how small and beautiful wrens are.
“With that old currency you had so much of Britain in your purse or your pocket. The thought and care which went into them was quite incredible.” For her design she had to keep the elements of the old coins in proportionate size and then cleverly arrange them in an eye-catching way.
“With pre-decimal coins there’s a feeling of nostalgia, so you have to be respectful,” she admits. “You know they were a lovely part of peoples’ lives.
“My nan’s memory isn’t so great now but when I get an old coin out she smiles.There is still that recognition. Speaking to her about the old coinage was very helpful to me and a bit emotional.”
Young people will be astonished to learn
that there was a nationwide campaign to save the sixpence before D-Day (Decimal Day) arrived half a century ago. People felt so strongly they took part in marches, lobbied their MPs and demanded action, but they stood no chance of turning back the tide of currency progress.
The route to decimalisation can be traced way back to 1682 when Sir William Petty suggested there should be five farthings to a penny instead of four.
Sir Christopher Wren in 1696 argued for a silver “noble” to be created which could be divided by 10. In 1848 the nation’s first decimal coin appeared. The florin was worth one
tenth of a pound. Yet it was not until 1961 that real planning started. Labour Chancellor James Callaghan announced in 1966 that pounds, shillings and pence had finally had their day.
Twelve pennies would no longer make a shilling and 20 shillings would not make a pound. Many saw it as an “end of empire” moment.
In 1968 a new Royal Mint at Llantrisant in south Wales was opened by the Queen and the first of six new coins went into production. New 5p and 10p coins arrived in April 1968 with new heraldic designs. A year later the 50 pence piece replaced the old ten bob note. Six billion coins would be needed for full decimalisation, so the Mint was a constantly busy place.
New and old coins were in use at the same time to make it easier for the public to get their heads around the changes.
To help educate the nation, ITV broadcast Granny Gets The Point featuring a drama where an elderly woman is taught to use the decimal system by her grandson. The BBC ran similar educational programmes.
Chris Barker, information and research manager at the Royal Mint Museum, says: “When it was unveiled there was very little fuss because of the planning. It was an example of the Royal Mint at its best. Pre-decimal coinage had an emotional hold on people which was very ingrained, very eccentrically British.
“In the late 1960s Britain was becoming a bit archaic. We were one of the last countries around the world to get decimalised and we were being left behind.
“We had no option but to embrace the new decimal currency system because we wouldn’t have been able to operate in Europe, let alone the world as a whole. “I think there is a practical element to decimalisation. It is ideal for simplicity and that is why it has gone down so well. “When you look at currency through history what tends to occur is that inflation happens and the system evolves. When you lose a low denomination coin you get a high denomination coin.”
Thus, in 1984, the halfpenny coin went out of circulation a year after the £1 coin was introduced.
‘They were a lovely part of our lives. My nan’s memory isn’t so great, but when I get out an old coin she smiles’
TO REKINDLE coin memories, the Royal Mint Museum has created a “museum in a box” for care homes to encourage elderly residents to reminisce about the currency which played such an important part in their childhoods and lives as young adults.
The 45 miniature museums are packed with replica and original items from decimalisation – including predecimal coins, government posters and newspapers from 1971.
Each object contains a micro-chip which, when placed on the box, plays audio clips and tells an aspect of the story of the changeover.
Dr Kevin Clancy, Director of the Royal Mint Museum, said: “We wanted to capture the nation’s experience of decimalisation, and provide an engaging activity for those who had lived through it.
“Each box contains a collection of original and replica objects to bring back memories of decimalisation, and use the latest technology to ‘talk’ to residents. We hope the boxes will help people relive cherished memories, and bring a little fun during these tough times.”
The Royal Mint Museum is making the boxes available to care homes free of charge, with more than 1,000 sessions available to book in 2021.
Each care home will receive a box for two weeks, and they are thoroughly cleaned and disinfected between uses.
It’s a great idea and you never know, it might just kick-start memories of that old “Save our sixpence” campaign.
QUEEN Victoria’s mourning jewels, which reveal her “intimate side”, are to be sold.
The diamond cross and pendants – containing photos and locks of hair – were made after the deaths of her mother and three of her nine children including Alice, aged 35.
They were passed through descendants of Victoria, pictured, to great-greatgranddaughter Patricia Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, who died aged 93 in 2017.
David Macdonald, of Sotheby’s auctioneers, said: “Think of Victoria and you think of the great jewels of state. These jewels are much more intimate.” The Princess Alice cross is tipped to fetch £3,000 in the London sale on March 24.