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  Looking at this picture (right), It doesn’t seem like there are only a
few months left until the “Summer of Love”, with its long hair, flower power
clothes, drugs and freedom to explore almost anything, but in 1966, this is
how most of our shiny scrubbed children still look. Seen here, feigning interest in savings
whilst a lady looking more like a 1940s film star than a Bank Offical smiles
sweetly, they pose for the cover of the Spring 1966 Edition of Martins Bank Magazine,
reassuringly “un-rock ‘n’ roll” in the same year that an Elephant, a Camel
and a Hippo will fundamentally change the way Martins Bank advertises
itself. Perhaps we are witnessing the
strong family appeal that the Bank has always engendered amongst its staff,
and would like to keep forever? The
fact is, that time is sadly running out for the idyllic childhood of the
1950s. New freedoms will bring not
only great opportunity, but also many many dangers for the next generation of
children, as the world becomes at once more competitive, and less safe. In ten years time these smiling children might be heading for university, or they
might be adorned with safety pins and torn clothing, screaming out the
message of punk on “Top of the Pops”…
Let’s return now to the relative safety of the 1960s, to see just how
our kids are being wooed by Martins Bank and others, to put their pennies in
the vault. The majority
of Martins’ Giveaways are aimed at children, and in this re-written feature,
we look at what has been on offer at Martins (and some other banks) down the
years, in order to tempt young savers…
The moneybox comes of age…
 Marketing savings to children is nothing new, and
certainly not born from the new competitiveness that Banking undergoes from
the late 1960s onwards. In 1921, a
classic design is born – the oval metal
HomeSafe that is used
by generations of adults and children to save for that rainy day. This image
shows a stack of Home Safes, ready for customers of the Bank’s portable
Branch at the Royal show in Manchester, 1930. The concept is of course, quite
simple. The Home Safe is like having a secure little piece of your bank at
home with you: Locked at all times, and opened only at the counter of the
bank so that the contents can be paid into an account. These oval money boxes
are by no means rare, and it
is very easy to pick them up cheaply on internet auctions sites. Tens of Thousands were issued by
hundreds of banks and building societies throughout the United Kingdom
between 1921 and the early 1940s, and those bearing the names of Martins
Bank, and the Bank of Liverpool and Martins should not be difficult to find,
and you should not expect to pay more than a few pounds for one of these
charming souvenirs of banking days gone by…
Images © Martins Bank Archive Collections
With the exception of Lewis’s
Bank, and a small number of others, there’s not much to choose from really –
the majority of HomeSafes look exactly the same, and the effect
might even be to encourage someone to open accounts with the minimum deposit
at several banks simply to collect
the differently named oval
HomeSafe boxes, and
not bother to use them as intended by the banks. This will hardly encourage
brand loyalty. By the 1950s many banks
have moved away from the generic oval tin, to Home Safes of their own
creation, but the basic idea of the key being held by the bank remains. You might think that the banks had learned
the pitfalls of a ubiquitous design, but even when many, Martins included, go
for something new and attractive, it ends up looking much of a muchness…
Images © Martins Bank Archive Collections
Catching the Savings
Bug…
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 With the merger already on the cards, Martins’ swansong
offering becomes an instant classic – the see-through yellow plastic
grasshopper money box, given away to young savers, in combination with a
golden coloured grasshopper lapel badge, allows the
Bank one last chance to exhibit brand independence before the Spread Eagle
takes over. Sadly, at the same
time, a key player in the history and fortunes of Martins drops off the
radar, when suddenly the Liver Bird, symbolic both of the Bank of
Liverpool, Martins Bank itself, AND its glorious Head Office Building, is
nowhere to be seen.
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Image ©
Martins Bank Archive Collections
Special
thanks to John Robertshaw
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The thinking behind this might
be to make the Bank more attractive to London-centric investors. The
sturdy little plastic grasshopper which is (apparently) indestructible,
might be a strong statement about the bank, but this seems sadly ironic
considering how these beautiful little boxes have outlasted the bank
itself. Indestructible they might
be, but they certainly don’t need a super-criminal to break into them and
steal the contents. In a departure
from lockable money boxes that can only be emptied out in front of the
cashier, the grasshopper money box has only a small plastic sliding door
between you and your pennies.
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Martins Bank makes
the most of the arrival of its latest giveaway, and the grasshopper
moneybox is celebrated by the following tongue in cheek article in Martins
Bank Magazine…
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Grasshoppers Under Stress…
  The Childproof Grasshopper
Moneybox has taken the nation's children by storm, replacing the traditional
piggy-bank, now lying forgotten in dingy attics. In this article we describe
the work of the Grasshopper Testing Establishment and pay tribute to the
staff whose skill and devotion to duty have brought about this revolution in
nurseries throughout the country… fatigue failures in the initial
manufacturing stages of the Mark I Grasshopper brought to the fore the danger
to the young saver of lethal knife-edged plastic splinters from disintegrated
money-boxes. 'Safety for Savers' became the order of the day and the
Grasshopper Testing Establishment was set up at Nether Hopping. The project
was naturally highly secret and only after careful  screening, were we permitted to make our
visit, travelling down with the weekly supply convoy. Arriving at the heavily guarded main gate
we found the duty dog-handler Herbert Rumford-Street and his watchful tripe
hound who were on special detachment from No. 2 Mobile Sub-branch (Fred's
Caff, Great North Road). Our passes carefully scrutinised, we were ushered
through the outer perimeter to the Admin. Office which had been skilfully
disguised as a derelict Nissen hut. On the door was a weatherworn notice which
we deciphered as TO LET. FOR GENTLEMEN ONLY — a cunning subterfuge.
Stepping inside we were impressed with the subtle decor, reminiscent of the later
Great Western period, of chocolate and cream relieved with quaint motifs — in particular a simple but effective epitaph
for the ubiquitous Kilroy. Here we met the Director of
Operations, Isaac O'Kelly (Mac to his friends), who showed us an example of
the Grasshoppers at that time being tested. 'These beggars nearly got the
better of us' he remarked with a wry smile. Briefly he described testing
methods, the ultimate aim, he assured us, being the creation of the
Indestructible Grasshopper Moneybox. Donning our
protective suits of imitation plastic and matching gumboots, we began our
tour of the Establishment. At Econ. Inf. Pub. and Ad. we met charming Joan
Farnsbarns, a prominent figure. While reluctant to reveal vital statistics of
which she is in sole charge, she entertained us with several amusing
anecdotes.
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The Grasshopper Testing Establishment at Nether Hopping
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She told us that her hobbies are numismatics, embroidery and
that she is a black belt. We moved on… At the reception shed we watched a
consignment of Grasshoppers being carefully unpacked. Each received a sharp
blow with a six-pound hammer before being forwarded to No. 2 bay where Jim
Blogworthy and his happy staff select specimens at random into which are
dropped foreign coins of equivalent weight to 73/6d and which are then
hurled at a thick brick wall. Jim informed us that 17% of the Grasshoppers
handled by his section are found defective, as was a similar percentage of
his staff. Mr Blogworthy, who served his apprenticeship at Brooks's Bar, is
the father of nine children. He has no hobbies. From a distance we viewed
the more sophisticated techniques to test resilience.
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Even the ordinary domestic explosion
(gas cookers, geysers, oil heaters, etc.) is simulated, thus guaranteeing
that our moneyboxes (or 'bug-banks' as they are laughingly termed) are
completely child-proof. Our final call was to the
packaging department where the Grasshoppers are boxed together with a simple
picture-leaflet explaining to the kiddies exactly what they can do with them.
We were told of the grand opportunities opening up in this field for young
men of muscular physique who feel perhaps that their duties in general
banking do not give them sufficient outlet. A management training scheme is
now in operation for men of the right calibre. It was time to take our leave of Mr O'Kelly and on our way back we
recalled the words inscribed above his desk which summed up the raison d'etre of the Establishment
—
'We're Bugging Britain'.
Rainy Day Records…
In common
with the building societies, many 1960s banks still offer Passbook Savings –
the bank statement is replaced in importance by the passbook, a record of
savings activity kept by the customer, and updated by the bank.
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 The credit transfer system, introduced in 1962 is
updated in 1968 and re-named Bank Giro Credits. This is in anticipation of the full computerisation of all banks expected by the Government by the
time of the introduction of decimal currency on 15 February 1971, and this
is also the time when the National Girobank is created at Bootle, near
Liverpool. The Savings Account
paying in slip shown here is virtually the only re-designed piece of
Martins Bank customer stationery before the merger with Barclays. The money mark begins to appear, a
symbol used by all banks to denote the new faster ways to transfer
money.
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This system is still largely
in place in the twenty-first century, although the use of paper transactions
is now seen as a hindrance to the fast flow of funds, and in 2018 all banks
began working to establish a new system of photographing cheques in order to
abolish the traditional clearings. This has mixed results, as the Cheques Act
is broken where “house” cheques are concerned. The spirit of the act is that
you should be able to take a cheque to the bank branch on which it is drawn,
and obtain payment for it immediately.
This is simply unworkable today, and
now that the banks have actively discouraged customers from visiting
branches, it probably won’t be an issue. Still, waiting a week for a “house”
cheque to clear is exactly good progress.
Let’s Play!
  The 1960s child is not only interested in playing
“Cowboys and Indians” and “Hide and Seek”.
Some like to count their pennies into shillings and their shillings
into pounds. Being given a ten
shilling note by a favourite aunt is a magical experience that
fewer and fewer of us remember, but playing with money, be it the real thing
or cardboard coins used in maths lessons at school helps us learn all
about the stuff. From the late 1950s
all the way up to the merger, Martins in conjunction with the Kiddicraft® toy company, offers sets of play money that
include miniature Martins cheque and paying in books. The toys make the front cover of Martins
Bank Magazine in Winter 1964, when young Peter is shown giving a miniature cheque for sixpence (£0.025) to his mother in exchange for
a bag of chocolate coins. – What fun Christmas must have been in that
household. How much for a roast dinner? Or and hour in front of the TV? Who knows - this may well have been the
starting block for many an entrepreneur!
Buy your own Martins Bank!
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Image
© Martins Bank Archive Collections
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This
is not really a giveaway, more of a
1960s collaboration with model railway makers to provide a little scale
model Martins Bank to add authenticity to any collector’s train set. Sometimes sold alone, sometimes joined to
a model shop, this special branch of Martins comes as a flat piece of
cardboard that you then make into a three dimensional model. We already have one example of each of
the 1960s designs in our archive, but imagine our surprise, on learning
that these models have just started to undergo a Twenty-First Century
renaissance, thanks to our friends at Metcalfe Models of Skipton, North
Yorkshire. We recently contacted the company, and Nick Metcalfe told us how
one of Martins Bank’s branches became the inspiration for the new
generation of models:
“I
chose the SKIPTON BRANCH as it is a local
bank to us, and also it is not over intricate in its design which made it
easy to model in card. I remember
going into that branch of Martins Bank when I was a small boy with my
Grandmother, and the Manager gave me a bag full of Farthings, which had
just gone out of circulation. I
still have some of them today”.
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 Martins
Colleague Dave Baldwin, who is Secretary of the Grasshopper Pensioners’ Club,
reminds us that the model is based on how the branch looks TODAY:
“During Martins’ time, the frontage was completely different
and the model depicts the branch as it is today. Original windows have become
doors, the property owned by the bank and leased to Skipton solicitors
Charlesworth, Wood and Brown has been incorporated into the frontage whilst
'The Hole in the Wall' public house has become a newsagent’s”.
Here (right) is the new version, just one of a whole host of intricately
designed models available from the Metcalfe
site. Our Archive is dedicated to
preserving the memory of Martins Bank, whether by preserving items from the
past, or supporting those from the present day - so naturally we are thrilled
when others want to do the same. You
can find out more about the current range of Metcalfe Models here: www.metcalfemodels.com. Please remember that by clicking on the link to Metcalfe
Models, you will be taken directly to their site, which is not part of
Martins Bank Archive.
And
finally, the small print…
  Martins
make it fun for children to save! These are the days when children can earn a
decent return on their savings of around 4.5%, unlike today when children
have no real concept of being paid to save. In fact pre-paid debit card with
fees of £2.99 per MONTH, whilst marketed as the way to teach your child to manage their pocket
money, provides no incentive whatsoever to save. Noiwadays your “credit
score” is the only thing that matters – how much you can BORROW, and sadly
all too often not be able to repay.
The optimism of Martins Bank’s leaflet for children is charming, but
definitely, and sadly now confined to history. EVERYONE NEEDS A BANK ACCOUNT is Martins’ final branded customer leaflet to set
out the wares of the bank as at November 1968. Various types of account, and other
products are explained in detail, including the new Grasshopper Savings
Accounts for Children. Cue an
advertising pose, struck by some “typical” children of the period grouped
around the iconic new Grasshopper Moneybox and other account paraphernalia,
but please do beware those sunshine bright curtains…
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Grasshopper Savings Accounts for Children
These are designed to encourage children to
save. When a Grasshopper Savings Account
is opened — the initial deposit can be as little as 1 shilling.
The child is given an attractive money box in
the shape of a grasshopper, a
colourful savings book, and a special paying-in and withdrawal
book. The child also receives a gilt
grasshopper lapel badge.
This scheme is run on proper banking lines.
Children aged seven and over can open their own account: for those under
seven the account is opened by a parent or guardian. The rates of interest and withdrawal
arrangements are the same as for ordinary Savings Accounts, but if the
child is under seven the parent or guardian signs the withdrawal slips.
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… and there we will leave our 1960s children playing with toy money,
Post Office Playsets and model railways.
The competition for the youth market has not yet reached full steam,
but will see some unusual attempts by all the banks to grab a slice of the
young savers’ market. One fine example
is the collaberation between Barclays, the Bank of Scotland and the Royal
Bank of Scotland (known previously in England as Williams & Glyns Bank)
and Kellogg’s® cereals. Children have
only just got out of bed, when already three banks are offering them £2 and a
moneybox, and the lure of Saturday morning banking. Where will it all end?
 M
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