CHERTSEY

BOATS, BRIDGES, BOILERS ... IF IT'S GOT RIVETS, I'M RIVETTED
... feminist, atheist, autistic academic and historic narrowboater ...
Likes snooker, beer, tea, rivets and solitude, and is strangely fascinated by the cinema organ.
And there might be something about railways.
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Saturday, 12 January 2019

Just chequing

I wrote a cheque last night to renew Chertsey's insurance. It was the last cheque in that particular chequebook. The first one was also used to pay for a boat's insurance - Bakewell's in that instance - in 2013.

I like writing a cheque and putting it in the post. I don't even mind paying for a stamp for the privilege of not having to wrangle with a website or chat with a call centre. Writing a cheque still gives me that thrill of being a grown up. When I write a cheque, my Ys and Gs acquire extravagant loops of purple ink. I always write out the pounds and pence in words. Sometimes I can't quite remember how to sign my name.

The first cheque I ever wrote, many years ago, when I was a freshly minted grown-up, with my first current account, was to Amnesty International - my first membership subscription. Can you remember who yours was to?

4 comments:

  1. I share your love of writing cheques and the pride of my first cheque book. I think that I was the first in my family to have a cheque book, and then only because I worked for the Co-op and my mate was in the bank. Sadly, I don't recall my first cheque.
    A year or so later I moved to Wales at the time when Barclays began issuing bi-lingual cheques.
    I still remember the, very friendly and helpful, branch manager asking why I, as an English speaker, should want one. I clearly recall that it took him a while to comprehend my answer, which was that I wanted to show solidarity with my Welsh-speaking host community.
    My current, half used, cheque book, which is carefully cosseted in it’s leather cover, was started in 2010. Perhaps it will be the last one I ever have. A sobering thought, the advance of old-age and progress!

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  2. Sarah, You can send me a cheque anytime!😄£££

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  3. Sorry, my first cheque was written far, far too long ago to recall the payee.

    I do remember a flat-mate when I first went to Warwick (he was 18 and definitely 'posh', I was 23 and definitely not) showing me his brand new cheque book and asking how he could get £10 cash with it. Before ATMs of course.

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  4. Ah cheques - they are beginning to become a blast from the past. We do still have two cheque books, but they seem to be used mostly for paying for our Canal Society and my WI annual membership fees. I guess one day it will all be done by bank transfer. Many, many moons ago a few months after we got married I broke my right arm and as my husband was going to be overseas whilst I was in plaster we had to go to the bank and building society to get authorisation for me to sign cheques with my left hand. Jennie nb Tentatrice

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