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Beauty
and danger…
Arnside is described by the late, great, Alfred Wainwright
as Westmorland’s only seaside resort, but with its infamous dangerous
quicksands and fast rising tides this is definitely one beauty spot to be
respected. Untold numbers of people,
animals, tractors, horse carriages and other unfortunate souls have met a
grizzly end here!
The Martins Bank sub branch here is opened in 1897 by the
Bank of Liverpool. It survives the change
to Barclays, and remains open until April 2000, having provided banking
services to the village for more than one hundred years. In the 1940s, the
branch sits amidst the hustle and bustle of Arnside’s many shops in these
images from a Valentines® postcard of the period.
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In Service: 1897 until 7 April 2000
Image © Barclays Ref: 0030/0059
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Images © Valentines and successors
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Some Branches of Martins Bank have a
high turnover of staff, but sub-Branches usually enjoy the services of the
same Clerk in Charge for many many years. Mr W H (Bill) Mashister is one of
Arnside’s longer serving Clerks in Charge, and is the face of the bank to
the people of the village for thirteen years – 1953 to 1966. Upon his retirement, Martins Bank
Magazine prints the following
tribute…
Mr W. H. Mashiter
  on august 31 Mr and Mrs Mashiter entertained past and present colleagues
to a sherry party at Kendal branch on his retirement after 14 years as
Clerk-in-Charge at Arnside. The major part of his 42 years' service had
been spent in the Kendal area after 4 years in Liverpool. Mr Mashiter had
lunched with the District General Manager in Liverpool during the previous
week.
Mr C. Clark (Manager, Kendal)
confessed that a similar record of service had been his boyhood dream of
the best job in the Bank but that Mr Mashiter had greatly increased the
Arnside business and, with his wife, entered fully into the local activities
in which he held seven treasurerships. He mentioned Bill Mashiter's prowess
as a county rugby player and later as a golfer: only a fortnight earlier he
had achieved his first hole-in-one. On behalf of many colleagues Mr Clark
then presented a cheque which Mr Mashiter promptly handed to his wife whose
help he had so greatly valued in his happy years at Arnside. Mrs Mashiter
also received a bouquet from Miss J. M. Scott.
Everything
changes…
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1969 © Barclays
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1992 © Martins Bank Archive Collections
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 That Arnside
sub-Branch survies so long after the merger is music to the ears of those
whose effort to keep open some of the other local Martins Branches such as STAVELEY has been in vain. Keeping the rural way of life is all
too often seen as a luxury today, when face to face communication and participation
on local events has to battle with the insular world of “social
media”. The harsh economics of
village banks that are haemorraging customers whilst running costs increase
relentlessly cannot be ignored, and all banks begin their own periods of
“consolidation” from the late 1980s to the early years of the twenty-first
century. Parliamentary intervention
may have temporarily slowed the slash and burn policy of some banks, but as
all of us are actively encouraged to stay AWAY from our banks and do more and more through telephone
applications and computer banking,
it surely won’t be long before the next cull of bank branches. Use it or lose it? Well actually, that horse has already
bolted - you’ve already lost it!
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