1970: DECORATORS tackle DECIMAL CURRENCY | Nationwide | World of Work | BBC Archive

"Look you've used our whole wall up and we're still no further forward with this."
A group of decorators tackle the transition to decimal currency by trying to work out their wages in a larger than life way.
Clip taken from Nationwide, originally broadcast on BBC One, Tuesday 3 February, 1970.
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[@volo870]

Imagine some poor sod living all his life without knowing that he has this Banksy masterpiece under his wallpaper!

[@MrPbizzle1]

The phrase ‘Painting-by-numbers’ comes to mind.

[@bblair2627]

Me working out what colour bin to put out

[@richardh8082]

🤣🤣🤣

[@brianmmacu]

Always a good day when you bring us one of these newly rediscovered Monty Python sketches

[@flowerpot5207]

Every time he said "It's quite simple", it got more complicated.

[@robinvanags912]

Overcome with emulsion while glossing over the issue.

[@jasonayres]

Painted themselves into a corner there. Should have brushed up on their mathematics, perhaps..?

[@MrSimonmcc]

I highly doubt I will see better comments than these today.

[@llengsuch3426]

@@MrSimonmcc And that's the unvarnished truth!

[@JohnHonda101]

I remember my Grandmother having a piece of card that converted the new money into old. She died in 2009 at 93 years old and still used to say that would be so much in pounds shilings and pence.

[@MASTERATCOD4]

Good to see it was a nice easy transition for everyone 😂

[@mid-walesrover681]

This is very entertaining but I was 13 in 1970 and for most folk the conversation to decimal currency was pretty straightforward. A few reference points made it easy to grasp: 15 shillings became 75p; 10 shillings (ten bob) became 50p; 5 shillings became 25p and 1 shilling (12 pennies) became 5p. I fondly remember when half a crown (2 shillings and six pence) aka half a dollar (12.5p) was worth something!

[@uvb_dreams]

When you were growing up, how much would you have to pay pre-decimal for a small snack - tin of soda and a chocolate bar, for example?

[@WeatherGirlWares]

"It's very simple, you see". 😂

[@steveyoung9491]

Looks like Ron Mael from Sparks is having difficulty pretending he knows what he's talking about! 😂

[@stephenguppy7882]

🤣🤣👍

[@jkmac625]

The guy seemed so confident at first with all that number gibberish he was coming out with until the other guy asked him to translate his wage of £16 1s 8d to decimal and he couldn't do it! I grew up in the 1980's still using 1 shilling coins as 5p and 2 shilling coins as 10p, so I'll give it a go based on what I know. £16 = £16 (no change there) 1 shilling = 5p 8 Old Pence (now it's more fiddly) - 12 old pence = 1 shilling so 8/12ths of a shilling 8 divided by 12 then x 5 (5p per shilling) = 3.333333333333 new pence Therefore 1s 8d = 8.333333333 new pence £16 1s 8d = £16.08 (rounded down) Just realised you can do it another way counting up in old pence (240 pence to the £) rather than using fractions of shillings. 12 (1s) + 8d = 20d divided by 240 then times by 100 = 8.3333333 new pence. I'm glad I didn't have to deal with this pre-decimal stuff! I've just worked out where that recurring number comes from at 1:15 - it's 100 divided by 240 (0.4166666666666667). New Pence per £ divided by Old Pence per £. So it's for converting his new decimal wage back into old money not for working out his new wage. Still not worked out what that rounding up / rounding down bit is for other than to get rid of the horrible recurring decimals places.

[@TestGearJunkie.]

I was waiting for somebody to come in and say what the [insert expletive of choice] have you done to my wall..? 🤣

[@bugandbay]

This sums it up, the writing was on the wall for the old system 😂

[@Dench999or911]

This video is pure gold!

[@Jack_Warner]

I can still convert decimal back to £SD. I tried to save up 15 shillings to buy a Thunderbird 2 model, like my mate Trevor had. That's 75p in decimal, but it seemed like a fortune then.

[@raynarks]

Was that the Corgi model?

[@Jack_Warner]

@@raynarks No I don't think Corgi made one, but Dinky did, but it was a light metallic blue colour. The one I wanted was plastic, and a lot bigger than the Dinky model. They also made a Thunderbird 3 and 4. I think the Thunderbird 4 had a lot of extras like a motor and a remote cable attached to it.

[@RUSH2112RUSH]

1:39 "It's quite simple." Lol

[@Tim_Weaver]

I remember at that time all the price stickers on goods in the supermarket had dual prices, both in £sd and the new money.

[@Timic83tc]

The unintentional creation of Bitcoin, or the Superman 3/Office Space scheme

[@unnamedchannel1237]

They will have that wall painted in no time

[@w1o2l3f4i5e]

Recorded in a time when a Mars bar was six pennies now it sells for about seventy-five pence and is a lot smaller than the six pennies one😮How life changes😢

[@Tim_Weaver]

That's fifteen bob! What a rip-off!

[@Wim2600]

75p when bought in bulk at the supermarket, surely? More like £1.25 to £2 for a single one in a convenience store or a vending machine these days.

[@kaithescreaminglemon8768]

It’s actually crazy when you consider how much things would be in old £sd. For example, a freddo would be worth a crown (5 shillings), a can of fizzy drinks is roughly about 15/-. My child single bus fare is about £1.60 which is £1’12’0 . My free school meals daily money comes to £2’10’0 to £2’15’0 which is considered “tuppence” today. And perhaps a square bar for school would set you back 15/10d. And furthermore the minimum wage being £11’8’9. So all in all everything’s gone up and we’re all being ripped off.

[@tonythetyger99]

'Accountants are a going to make a fortune out of this.' Nothing's changed then.

[@craggyisland8770]

“this Conveniently rounds up..”” , rounds down

[@oehasan]

Funniest clip I’ve seen in ages. It beats Del Boy dropping the chandelier or falling through the bar.

[@oehasan]

I thought I was watching a two Ronnie’s sketch for a minute - Four Candles?

[@andrewgreen5892]

"You've used the wall up, that's it"

[@stephendent3058]

That's quite correct

[@bordersw1239]

As a 3-4 year old I seem to remember constant TV transmissions showing a diagram of what each coin was worth. Think it came on after the test card.

[@trainscranesandtrivialtale7262]

Ron Mael pre Sparks

[@rhythmicallydivine]

This town ain't big enough for the both of us

[@Springamatul]

I also noticed that.😀😀

[@samsuuddin9731]

Never has the word 'Thus' been bastersized in all my life. 😂

[@MichaelBosley]

Painting in a shirt and tie.

[@fatherofthenoo]

To this day, he still points out that 5 is "conveniently" rounded up.

[@Middle-Road.Kim.K]

Very enlightening. Whenever I heard someone speaking of the struggles of new money, I'd think, "it's units of 100, how hard is that?" I didn't know that the government pamphlets were utter rubbish. Should've known better. 🤦‍♀️ This may be a spoof, but that document looks real enough. It's exaggerated but I have no doubt flavours of this conversation were going on round dinner tables all over the place.

[@TeriHargraveartist]

Decimalisation, decimalise. Decimalisation, decimal five. To music, introducing the new decimal coins...

[@IndaloMan]

My bus fare to school went up from 3d to 2p. I only had a 3d on the Monday after we went decimal so the bus conductor told me off, but let me travel. #goodolddays

[@jimhill4725]

This is hilarious - and very well done

[@julianshepherd2038]

Drinking in Lsd is a nightmare. Half the night is spent working out if the change was right.

[@petergivenbless900]

No one does improvisational comedy like the British!

[@standenberg]

The geezer in the flat-cap looks like Del-Boys Dad. As featured in the 1983 episode “Thicker Than Water”. Great clip, although I expected a younger Del-Boy to turn up like he did when he ‘decorated’ Denzil’s front room 🤣😂

[@InsertNameHere73894]

This reminds me of Maths class.

[@ldavid2528]

Like every maths lesson I've ever had. Still confused.

[@andypyne]

The clip is a bit sensationalised - though I've no doubt at the time the official guidance was as pointlessly inaccessible as official documentation is today. The conversion isn't that complex 'in general'. Whereas the Imperial system has the Sovereign/Pound made up of 20 shillings, the Decimal system has the £Pound made up of 100 pence. A Shilling therefore converts to 5pence. A Imperial Guinea was 21 Shillings, which is £1.05 in Decimal. A Crown is 5 shillings or 25pence. The Decimal system has a 50pence which is therefore 2 Crowns. Imperial has a Half Crown which is therefore 12.5pence Imperial has a Florin which is 2 Shillings, so therefore 10pence A Sixpence is half a Shilling, so 2.5pence It's here it gets a bit dicey since when decimalisation came in, the coinage only went down as far as a half-pence (which was later dropped so a penny is the smallest denomination now). Imperial breaks into much smaller coinage A Thruppence was half a Sixpence so 1 + 1/4 pence A Penny was a sixth of a Sixpence so about 0.4pence A Halfpenny was half of a Penny so about 0.2pence A Farthing was half of a Halfpenny so about 0.1pence I'm not saying it would have been easy - especially at the smaller denominations, but the Painter's example of "16 Pounds, 1, and 8" could for example be more easily worked out as: 16 Pounds = 16 Pounds 1 Shilling = 5 Pence 8 Pennies = 0.4 * 8 = 3.2pence So £16.08. The 0.2pence would probably have been dropped unless someone was feeling generous and rounded is up to 0.5p (the new half-pence). Effectively the message to the painters is 'You can convert your new wage quite simply down to the Shilling, but the fractional denominations below that need a bit of working out" I wasn't around at the time but I suspect people had little cheat sheets worked out that they carried around with them or were pinned up to walls in shops. It's really no different than travelling abroad and having to mentally work out the approximate cost of goods in the native currency versus the home currency you're familiar with. And if you lived in that foreign-land for 6+months, you'd probably just be conversing in the native currency and no longer mentally referring back to what it would have been worth in your 'old' home-soil money. I'm sure there were initial tussles over people being short-changed etc, but really, anything down to a Sixpence could be easily converted perfectly with no fractions left over. I'd imagine it was more of a challenge for fast transactional exchanges like buying a loaf of bread where you have to think more quickly on your feet than things like pay or mortgage payments that you could sit down and patiently work out. If I were the painters, I'd probably ask that my pay was increased from "16 Pounds, 1, and 8" to "16 Pounds, 1 Shilling, 8Pennies, a Halfpenny and a Farthing" which works out to be the same £16.08 but instead of having 0.2pence left over, there would be 0.5pence left over and the painters would 'earn' an additional shiny new half-pence since: Remainder (from 16..1..8) = 0.2pence Halfpenny = 0.2pence Farthing = 0.1pence Total = 0.5p = one shiny new half-pence By the way, the percentage that the painter's 0.2pence (drop in wages) or 0.3pence (increase in wages) against the 1608pence earned is about 100th of a (new) pence in both cases. According to the Office for National Statistics, the average UK weekly wage in late 2023 was £623. So a pay change of 100th of a pence per £16.08 (or 1608pence) would work out a cut or increase of 38p per week. I'm not saying this wouldn't be a big deal to some employees or employers if that type of change happened today, but that in the main part it wouldn't be nearly as significant or complex an event as the clip (and no doubt media at the time) made out.

[@dwgould2001]

£16.08 sov's old money wasn't £16.00 direct conversion - there was 240d to the old pound. I had an aunt, who could never get her head round decimal money, who was fovever converting back and forth to old money. Most of us actually welcomed decimal money as it simplified the currency, benefit was it also took out a chunk of small change out of the system and out of your pocket. Got to admit though I miss the old paper currency, fivers etc, they were substantial and a work of art.

[@dwgould2001]

Perhaps I should clarify. Old money pound is made up 20 shillings.0ne shilling = 12d hence old pound is 240 denarius/ pence. You got a lot for old pound way back when.

[@andypyne]

@@dwgould2001 Sure, 240d to the old pound, but 1d was 12th of a shilling and there were 20 of those in a pound, and 20(shillings)*12(d) = 240 as you say. I guess my main point about the clip was that it was needlessly complicated and converting between old and new wasn't the Mensa test it makes out.

[@dwgould2001]

@@andypyne Right, got you. No - your right of course, moving to a base 10 montary sytem for us kids, you didn't really notice. A lot of older people didn't really want to change, and public information films like this, didn't really help. I think it was really to meant to alay fears, a lot of people I remember thought they were being swissed out of money.

[@TestGearJunkie.]

@@dwgould2001 We were in some ways. Something that was 10 old pence suddenly became 10 new pence, virtually doubling the price overnight. I remember that as a kid buying sweets.

[@alanwhite7127]

and u have all been conned

[@Dan23_7]

What’s so confusing lads ? 😂

[@conradharcourt8263]

Conversion was not really as complicated as this spoof tries to make it seem!

[@moiragoddard592]

Everyone was confused and surprisingly the result was inflation.

[@th8257]

the oil shock was the major cause of the inflation

[@crustychris2]

I'm so glad we went decimal, imperial measurements mean nothing to me

[@crustychris2]

@@PGHEngineer no, I'm obviously just used to it, but I think it's the last thing I do in imperial

[@TestGearJunkie.]

@@PGHEngineer km/h actually. Fortunately the metric lot left that alone.

[@famicomplicated]

This is like trying to teach Americans about meters and centimeters. In the year 2024 though.

[@user-wp8vy8le3y]

Isn't the gentleman with the glasses just trying to show his intellectual and social superiority to the supposedly less intelligent manual workers ? Why not just state that under the new decimal system of currency, one old shilling equals five new pence; and twenty shillings or one hundred new pence equals one pound in both 'old' and 'new' money under decimalisation ? It would be far simpler and easier to teach them that way; or better still - why not hand out a simple and straightforward conversion sheet in two columns with the principal amounts highlighted for both 'old' and 'new' money ? 1 shilling = 5 pence 5 shillings=25 pence 10 shillings=50 pence . . . and so on ? Better still - why not just bring back 'groats' and 'farthings' to mark this transition from old to new !

[@TestGearJunkie.]

FFS It was satire, have you never heard of that..? 🙄

[@sleepyheadsleeps]

Funny

[@Softdattel]

I remember conversion day. All the good money was gotten rid of. No more sixpences, half-pennys, half-a-crown coins etc etc. How many pennys make up half-a-crown?Does anyone know today? You smart-kids wiv your smart-phones, come on, don't cheat by look'n it up - give us an answer? It may be useless knowledge, but it still is fun to have a memory bein' 102.

[@user-lr5hb6ne2p]

Mathematics,, this is a joke, sixpence is 2.•half pence, shilling is five pence, two and six, is 12.•five pence < 10, Shillings, is 50, pence, a pound sterling would be,240, pence,, would be now 100, pence, take note, simple Mathematics.!

[@raynarks]

He was right. We were shafted overnight.

[@palato742]

One of my grandfathers jokes was that he had trouble dropping LSD

[@ns9638]

A very early example of a Brexiteer trying to fool us that the new EU decimal currency that was coming in was going to be more difficult than it really was, when in reality it turned out to be far easier than the old Pounds, Shilling & Pence system. For those too young to remember, 20 shillings to a Pound and 12 Pence to a Shilling. Try adding these two amounts. Just two figures no more, no multiples, just two amounts. £6-11-9½ + £5-10-11 Answer £12-2-8½ I'm sure you can do it but is that easier than decimal? £7.60 + £4.25 = £11.85 This is just another example of the Brexit lies that we're fed to us even back as far as 1970. Shame on them all for the harm they have caused.

[@bordersw1239]

Another example of the lack of awareness or education of many of the remain voters. The E.U didn’t exist until 23 years after this was made.

[@rawlinsonboy]

Me trying to figure women out

[@TestGearJunkie.]

Hey, I'm a woman and I have trouble figuring them out as well 🤣

[@marklchapman2785]

We got ripped off as usual👎🇬🇧

[@MartinAhlman]

Comedy? Not understanding the number ten, getting confused about 100?