The Circle of Happy Winners…					To maintain and operate the vast bank accounting system for Littlewoods Pools, a top class bank with a VERY large branch is needed. With 4 Water Street already busy, it falls to our Liverpool Victoria Street branch to provide the know how and the manpower – around eighty staff dedicated to the weekly payouts from the football pools. This well oiled machine has one drawback for our staff: The worst working Mondays imaginable, when thousands of cheques, and around one million postal orders arrive in sacks to be processed. Most of the staff are in a pools syndicate, and just every once in a while they share a modest win or two. You can read more about this on our page BIG BUSINESS AT MARTINS BANK.
Image © Barclays Ref: 33/339
Once a lucky pools winner’s cheque has been processed, it is retrieved, pasted by Littlewoods on to a special certificate as a souvenir, and sent to the winner. The top left hand corner depicts someone filling out a pools coupon. The bottom left corner shows the “Happy Circle Handclasp” (!) and the bottom right corner has a drawing of the old bargaining stone at Fowey in Cornwall. Everything is designed to make the winner feel special for a little bit longer than it takes to spend their winnings!
Barclays have contributed hundreds of images to our online archive, many of them show the interior of Martins Branches, as well as what they look like outside. It is not often that interior shots include members of staff at work, so we are particularly pleased with the images below of the counter at Victoria Street. They certainly give a good idea of the large scale of the building, and show four somewhat diligent bank clerks at work – (perhaps being “on camera” has something to do with that!)…
Image © Barclays Ref 30/1695
The reason for the all male counter staff is explained now in these memories from our friend Teresa Harris who began work for Martins at Victoria Street in 1969, and stayed working continuously at the same branch until 2002!
The pictures of Victoria Street are really good and show the counter area as it was on the day I started working there in 1969. As in the pictures most of the cashiers in those days were male and as I recall the only female who had been "promoted" to counter work from the machine room at the time was Val Parish. She was on the counter  for some years after I started working there and in those days it was virtually impossible for a female to be allowed onto the front line to do counter work. The Littlewoods Section, dedicated to looking after the Littlewoods Group which included not only Littlewoods Pools but all of the 100+ store accounts and Littlewoods Mail Order catalogue  accounts, was manned by only 3 staff although the volumes of cheques and the non automated systems meant that a high percentage of the machine room work was Littlewoods related.
Image © Barclays Ref 30/1695
On a Monday and Tuesday evening after John Clegg had delivered his cheques and postal orders relating to the week’s coupons all the branch staff worked overtime up to 9pm in the evening to encode the cheques for clearing. With regard to the merger in 1969, having only just joined the staff at Victoria Street in the October I don't remember too much about the build up. On the actual day I was sent to Water Street to lend a hand with the huge amounts of correspondence that was delivered and all I can remember is how intimidating the branch seemed with so many staff. The post desk was on the Mezzanine floor and overlooked the busy Horseshoe counter area.  As far as I can remember the transition was very smooth, the hardest part for me was remembering to answer the telephone as "Barclays Bank" rather than "Martins Bank". I do remember many of the staff on the Martins Bank Victoria Street page (see staff gallery at the foot of this page) including the Manager at the time, Roger Whittam, his secretary Maureen McDonald, Mr Blair, Mr Robinson and of course Val Parish. The branch is now the Sir Thomas Hotel and a couple of years ago a friend and I were kindly given a tour of the building, The interior is now unrecognisable from the offices where we worked and the old Managers room on the second floor is now the VIP Suite which according to our guide has accomodated many of today's "celebrities". Thank you for helping to bring back so many happy memories of my time at the branch and  although I only worked for Martins for a very short time before the merger I still think of myself as a "Martins" person. Keep up the good work.
The Songbird of Victoria Street…
Reference was made in the last issue of the Magazine to the success scored by Valerie Parish in the production of" The Gondoliers" by the Music Section of Martins Bank Society of the Arts. Her performance was watched by the professional critics of the Merseyside amateur shows and one of them, the Liverpool Echo critic, made a separate feature about her, using the photograph alongside. He said: “One of Merseyside's youngest and most promising artists is Miss Valerie Parish, of Wallasey. Seventeen years old, she earned considerable appreciation for her study of Casilda in the recent production of ' The Gondoliers' by Martins Bank Society of the Arts, at Crane Theatre, Liverpool. A clerk with the Victoria Street, Liverpool branch of Martins, Miss Parish has a soprano voice of quality and is a most capable actress. Valerie is fond of pantomime and variety and for the last three years has played principal boy for the Wallasey Emmanuel Church Pantomime Society. She has also appeared with the ' Chrysanthemums,' and, with her flair for dancing and light comedy, is well known as an entertainer in charitable causes. She is a member of the Wallasey Emmanuel Church Choir”. A pleasant postscript to an excellent show, and the first time in the history of the Music Section of the Society that such a thing has happened.
Liverpool Victoria Street is known the branch where so many people started their career with Martins. This appears to have been confirmed by the following staff gallery, one of the largest for any branch in the online archive, with 62 staff faces currently recorded!
Mr N A Milroy Joined the Bank Here 1908 to 1912	Mr C H Bileau On the Staff 1908 to 1922			Mr E H Denman On the Staff 1911 to 1912		Mr H Unsworth Joined the Bank Here 1914 to 1916
Mr A Wall-Jones Joined the Bank Here 1916	Mr R P Williams Joined the Bank Here 1920			Mr A C Daniels Joined the Bank Here 1922 to 1923		Mr G F Camidge Joined the Bank Here 1925
Mr S J Johnson On the Staff 1927 to 1928	Miss Dorothy Diment Joined here as Machine Supervisor 1929			Mr C P Williams Pro Manager 1930 to 1936		Mr J H Woodfine On the Staff 1932 to 1934
Mr W E Worrall On the Staff 1933 to 1937	Mr D D Lynch Pro Manager 1934 to 1937			Mr G R Tarn Pro Manager 1934 to 1937		Mr W M J Scott Joined the Bank Here 1935 to 1936
Mr A N Parry Joined the Bank Here 1935 to 1935	Mr E B Gillard Chief Cashier 1935 to 1945			Mr P L Tiplady Joined the Bank 1938 to 1939		Mr W D Armstrong Manager 1939 to 1944
Mr A R Trevelick On the Staff 1940 to 1942	Mr S J Crisp On the Staff 1941 to 1943			Mr A J Corner Joined the Bank Here 1945		Mr F C Hardman Sub Manager 1945 to 1949
Mr R H B Whittam On Staff 1946 to 1947 Deputy Manager 1964	Mr E Russell Joined the Bank Here 1946 to 1947			Mr G S Gallagher Joined the Bank Here 1946 to 1948		Mr F F W Youd Pro Manager 1946 to 1961
Mr G B Nickson Joined the Bank Here 1947 to 1947	Mr J C Stockdale On the Staff 1947 to 1947			Mr F P Wilson On staff 1947 to 1949 Accountant 1959 to 1960		Mr N K Gibson Joined the Bank Here 1949 5to 1951
Mr A Butcher On the Staff 1949 to 1953 and 1963 to 1966	Mr R L Couper Pro Manager 1949 to 1957			Miss Valerie Griffiths On the Staff 1950		Mr B G Pearse Joined the Bank Here 1950 to 1951
Mr J D Home On the Staff 1953 to 1954	Mr J A McGregor Sub Manager 1953 to 1956			Mr M McClay On the Staff 1953 to 1960		Miss Valerie Parish On the Staff 1955
Mr J K Washington Manager 1955 to 1960	Mr F L Armstrong Pro Manager 1955 to 1965			Mr B O’Brien Accountant 1956 to 1959		Mr F S Pitts On the Staff 1956 to 1960
Mr G A Corkill On the Staff 1956 to 1961	Mr H Williams on the Staff 1959 to 1962			Mr W O Davies Manager 1960 to 1962		Mr F H Clayton Pro Manager 1960 to 1961
Mr D J Corlett Pro Manager 1960 to 1964	Mr S N Joynson On the Staff 1960 to 1964			Mr E J F Crawford Pro Manager 1961 to 1967		Mr E P Doyle On the Staff 1962
Mr J P Brown Manager 1962 to 1968	Miss M P MacDonald Manager’s Secretary 1964			Mr F A Robinson Accountant 1964		Mr F G Thomas In charge of Foreign Department 1964
Mr P M Summersgill Pro Manager 1964 to 1966	Mr R D Dyke Pro Manager 1966			Mr J Blair Pro Manager 1967		Mr A W J Roberts Deputy Manager 1968
Mr R H B Whittam Manager 1968 onwards	Mr R S Taylor Pro Manager 1969
Title:		11-00-90 Liverpool Victoria Street
Type:		Full Branch
Address:		PO Box 99 45 Victoria Street Liverpool L69 1AN
Hours:		Mon to Fri 1000-1500
		Saturday 0900-1130
Telephone:		CENtral 6701/2
Services:		Nightsafe Installed
Manager:		Mr R H B Whittam Manager
© gut informiert 2007 to date