ANYBODY old enough to remember 1971 will no doubt recall their favourite old coin.

Whether it was the popular brass threepence, the weighty half a crown or the large, shiny penny, it will have bought you much more back then than the equivalent would now.

Diane Garbutt's favourite was the threepence; a brass-coloured coin with a distinctive shape and portcullis on the back.

Diane, of Selby, would get sixpence for her weekly pocket money and save up for weeks for something she wanted, or if nothing caught her eye, fritter it on sweets.

"You could get four sweets for a penny, like Black Jacks and Kayli sherbet and Fruit Salads and liquorice," she said.

"Sometimes I'd save up for comics, which were only about 2d, or a skipping rope, which were always a lot more expensive then than they seem to be now."

Decimalisation, on February 15, 1971, came quite easy to Diane, because she was taught about it in school.

Older people often struggled though, she remembers.

"When you were queuing up for something and you didn't really know what it was going to cost you'd whip out a note and hope it was enough.

"Some shopkeepers would give you the proper change if you'd paid too much but if you weren't clued up you were getting swindled left right and centre."

For Judith Percival, decimalisation came as a welcome relief.

She was 13 in 1971 and remembers being taught how to convert money in class.

The best thing about it though, she says, was not having to struggle adding up the complicated old coins anymore.

"Every Monday in primary school was awful," she said. "We had to add up everybody's dinner money and convert it into guineas. I never got it right during my whole stay at primary school."

She would get sixpence pocket money each week and take it straight to the sweet shop. It was never enough for chocolate though, which cost about nine old pence. She had to make do with Black Jacks and boiled sweets instead, or Spangles, which cost threepence.

Decimalisation was tricky at the start, she says, because you had to convert old money into new money to know what you were paying.

Some shopkeepers were a bit unscrupulous, she remembers, and increased their prices, taking advantage of the fact people were unfamiliar with the value.

"We were only interested in sweets though and how all of a sudden they cost 2.5 pence instead of sixpence. I couldn't afford a record if I wanted one, as they had been one and six so that would be 7.5 new pence.

"I think my granny struggled with it quite a lot and you would see people queuing up and people tutting because it took them ages to sort the money out."

Before decimalisation, coins were very big, heavy and distinctive, she remembers.

New pennies did not weigh your purse down but it was difficult to find them when they were mixed together as they were a uniform size and colour.

Fiddling around your bag for them was hard, she says, but it gradually got easier.

Sixpences were her favourite, because they were small and neat, but she quite liked threepences too.

"The best thing was getting a crown or half crown because it was a lot of money," she said.

"If it was your birthday, people would always give you a crown or half crown rather than two and six because it was more of an occasion."

Fact file

  • In preparation for the changeover, the new Royal Mint in South Wales struck more than 2000 million decimal coins
  • Banks were closed from 3.30pm on Wednesday, February 10, 1971 until 10am on February 15, enabling them to stock up with the new coins
  • February was chosen for D-Day (Decimalisation Day) because it was the most convenient for banks, shops and transport organisations, being the slackest time of the year
  • Britain's first decimal transactions probably took place on a cross-channel ferry which left Dunkirk for Dover just after midnight on Saturday, February 13
  • After D-Day, cheques written in £sd were invalid
  • The new 50p coin was the world's first seven-sided coin
  • When first issued, the decimal coins bore the word new'
  • One man wrote to a newspaper suggesting that a suitable nickname for the 10p would be a pod' because it had 10ps (peas) in it
  • To familiarise the public with the new coins, souvenir sets went on sale from 1968
  • A pop song called Decimalisation' was brought out - but didn't make the Top 20
  • How the old system worked
    1 £ = 20 shillings (sh)
    1sh = one shilling of 12 pennies (d)
    1d = one penny or two half-pennies or four farthings

Information courtesy of Royal Mint