Metric zealots won’t give an inch

OFTEN, as I search out an old book to reread it, I am moved and grieved to see the price printed on its cover, generally in the shillings and pence abolished half a century ago but still fresh in my mind. It is not just that it shows how ferocious inflation has been, and that our currency has been debauched in slow motion.

I also feel a keen sense of loss. I liked our currency and was proud of the way it was different from everyone else’s, just as I was proud of the unarmed policemen we had then, and of all that went with that. I feel much the same way about our human, ancient measures, polished in use.

But I would not say much about it if it were not for the fanatics who attacked and destroyed these things, and who continue to do so. One of many dismal aspects of the last few months has been the incessant use, by the authorities, of the foreign metre when feet would have done just as well.

These zealots, remember, actually prosecuted the Sunderland greengrocer Steve Thoburn for selling bananas by t he pound weight to people who wanted to buy them in that measure.

What lies behind this destructive intolerant frenzy, now more than 200 years old? It is a very interesting question, yet it is the opponents of these changes who are always derided as obsessives, not those who demand them. Why?