11-67-60 Menston

Nostalgia reigns supreme in this lovely image of Martins Bank’s Menston sub-Branch in the 1940s. Branches in the Craven District are renowned for being in some of the most beautiful parts of God’s Own County, (or Yorkshire as it is sometimes known). We particularly like the telephone box conveniently situated near to the front door of the branch – an altogether more pleasing affair than the metal red boxes that will follow, but which nowadays also excite nostalgia.

For the benefit of Twenty-First Century children,

this is a public telephone box, from which you paid a small

fee to talk to people you could not see on a screen.

In Service: Pre 1906 until 9 December 1992

Images © Barclays Ref 0030-1876

“Hold the line, caller, and press button B”, aah those were the days… Menston is one of a string of sub-Branches to Otley, and in the 1960s having to run so many of them, explains the opening hours – 1.15pm to 2.30pm on a Wednesday and a Friday. This is better than the previous hours of 10am until Noon on a Wednesday at the time of this photograph in the 1940s. The hours of the other sub branches will all be neatly dovetailed so that the same team of staff, probably a cashier and a guard can cover all of them. That really IS going to extremes to be helpful, and Menston continues to be of service to the local community beyond the 1969 merger, surviving until December 1992. Its passing must surely have felt like the end of era…