Gypsy Creams

The Banking Revolution

Woman's Own / 20th June 1969

Obviously there’s a lot of fun to be had when looking at old advertisements, but occasionally an ad will slap you round the face with a sign saying ‘THIS IS THE FUTURE’. This ad from Midland Bank is quite staggering for someone of my age, as it’s speaking to my mother’s generation, and is absolutely right; the computer age did revolutionise banking. It’s quite likely that my mother wouldn’t have had a bank account at that point, yet I remember clearly opening my Natwest Piggy Bank account at the age of around 5 in the mid-1980s. Yes, I did collect all the pigs. No, I don’t have them all now. Yes, I know how much they’re worth now. Bah.

It’s rare to find an ad so clearly signposting the future, but it’s thrilling when you do.

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8 Comments

Sarah T on 20 September 2009 @ 12pm

the pigs aren’t worth as much as they were, i think at the beginning of ebay they went for crudloads, but the set isn’t so rare now everyone on the internets! I had that account too, but only collected the first 3 pigs through saving, we got the 4th pig from a bootsale i think, I can’t remember if we ever obtained the last one.


Tanya Jones on 20 September 2009 @ 1pm

I did get all of them, but I remember the last one (think he was called National Westminster), was nicked by a ‘troubled’ girl on our estate who tried to befriend me. She probably managed to smash it before they became worth anything, though!


Londis on 20 September 2009 @ 10pm

was nicked by a ‘troubled’ girl on our estate who tried to befriend me

I had the same thing between the ages of 7 and 12. A girl who tried to befriend me and stole things, and sometimes later showing them to me broken or in the process of being broken. Or leaving them on walls or the ground where I would see them. Oh look, there’s my missing calculator outside our front door, with its polarised screen all black, and tipp-ex all over the keys. It somehow looks like it’s been face down for a good while, being scuffed along the ground. Am I glad I brought that to school now!! Cow.


John Hoare on 21 September 2009 @ 12am

Really nicely written ad, too; straightforward, simple, informative, but without being patronising.

I wish there were more ads like it nowadays.


Morgy on 23 September 2009 @ 8am

Oh I had a friend like that too. It’s more common than I thought. It used to drive me nuts until one day I did say something to her and never saw her again :/


Dan on 28 September 2009 @ 2pm

Forty years later we’re nearly ready for ‘How a Cheque Book Worked’.


Tanya Jones on 28 September 2009 @ 2pm

That’s a very good point: our kids will be asking us how they worked!


Dirty Feed – Gypsy Creams on 21 May 2017 @ 9am

[…] If you’ve been wondering why Dirty Feed has been updating even less than usual recently, that’s because I’ve been busy redesigning Gypsy Creams, my darling girlfriend’s site based around 1960s magazines. There’s all sorts of amazing stuff there – and posted as part of the relaunch is this great interview with Simon Dee from 1969 – but one of my favourites is still the very first thing ever posted on the site. […]


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