Off to a life in Banking

Having decided that there was no point in going back to school - given myunderlying 'dislike' of the place, I discussed with the family about going out to work. I am sure that Mum and Dad were up for this because they certainly wouldn't have easily taken on the cost of 2 more years at school and then, maybe, university. In those days there were grants to pay for taking that route but none the less I am sure that they were secretly pleased that I did wish to go to work.

So, out came the Evening News and we trawled the job ads and came up with two that seemed interesting. Both were for starting positions in banking and both required just the four O Level GCE passes that I had. However, both were for banks that I had not heard of so that required some investigation. Amongst the then current 11 clearing banks, these two were in the lower half and both had their head office in Manchester. The District Bank and Williams Deacons Bank were not too well known in the south of England but that was what was advertised so I applied. I got an interview at both banks. Both job interviews included written papers in English and Maths which fortunatelywere not a problem for me. The interview  at Williams Deacons Bank was first and they offered me a job fairly promptly. District Bank followed with a job offer and ,not for the only time in my life, I turned Williams Deacons down and opted for District Bank.

To ensure that I knew what was in store, I read all the books about banking that I could get from the library and was quite excited at the idea ofjoining the staff of a bank branch in early September. I was asked to turn up at the London office of the bank in Cornhill, in the City, on that Monday in September 1961 at 9 am and, following a medical, was appointed to a position in The Walks department. This department was in that London office and was a central operation so my time in a bank branch was not to be - yet.

This is the then London Office of the District Bank - no longer a bank.


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The Walks department was a strange beast and had little to do with mainstream banking and everything to do with the efficient collection of funds in payment of cheques drawn upon the large number of banks in London that sat outside of the clearing system. As this is a fairly complex, if interesting, aspect of the UK banking system at that time, I will be adding an appendix to this missive which details the position of those banks and how the Non-clearing system worked.

Suffice to say for now that the department processed cheques drawn on institutions that were not part of the UK cheque clearing system. This entailed packaging up and delivering the debit items to each of those institutions in exchange for a payment that WAS drawn upon a bank in the clearing system, thus enabling us to obtain our cash. If this is not clear then read the Appendix.

The job was made more interesting because it involved being out of the bank for at least once a day and quite often twice a day which gave me as a 16 year old some freedom I didn't expect. In the early days I only got to go to the office of The Paymaster General which was in Russell Square, Holborn, but eventually I was appointed one of the two representatives on the Bank OfEngland's Walks system so I got to get out every day. Firstly, I was given a local route in the City which involved going out in the morning, returning to the bank over lunch and then going out again later. Eventually, I was given a route in the West End and, once I left in the morning, I wasn't expected back until around 3.30 or so. Most of the 'boys' in walks stayed there for 2 - 3 years before moving on, but after about 14 months, I was placed into the Credit Clearing department as the general assistant.