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Image © Martins Bank Archive
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Advertisement Remastered
11/05/2021
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In Service: 1967 until 26 March 1976
Image
© Barclays Ref 0030-0867
Look out! - the dreaded bandit  screens
have arrived! This really is a BIG deal in the late 1960s, squared inexorably
against the hopelessness of an ever increasing number of violent armed raids
on banks. With much sorrow Martins, and most of the other banks must face
reality, and do the unthinkable – place barriers between helpful staff
and their customers. This (unintentionally) brings about the beginning of the
end for intimate customer relations – an act that is eclipsed only by the
introduction of computers at the counter, followed very quickly by the
death-knell of internet banking – a phenomenon that continues to knock down
bank branches like skittles in the Twenty-first Century, and shows no sign of
stopping…
 opposite our new branch at 57 New Broadway,
Ealing, W.5, is the Town Hall, but in every other direction there are shops.
As the Borough itself is bigger than many a town there can be little wonder
why the Bank opened there, but if one bears in mind that the cost of a
three-bedroomed house in Ealing may run to five figures it becomes clear that
size was only one factor when considering the expansion programme.
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Fast,
frequent and varied train services into London, more than enough open
spaces, and the proximity to the A4 and the A40 at weekends have all
contributed to making the Borough a popular and consequently expensive
residential area. To the north there is industry, to the west and north
west is country, and the branch lies between our offices at Southall,
Richmond and Kensington High Street.
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The
new branch occupies a corner site, the side street leading to a large car
park, and though the frontage is rather narrow the depth is tremendous and
the Bank, with the help of the architects who also designed our very
attractive Ashford branch, have produced a winner. The visitor cannot help
being impressed by the way in which the unusually long outside wall has
been broken into distinctive sections, thus counteracting but at the same
time accentuating the effect of the high glass counter screens.
There
has been much talk of counter screens and if Ealing branch is the guinea
pig the screens there are worth far more than a guinea a box. The large
panels give a clear view of the cashiers, without the zoo aspect of the
more usual grille or any claustrophobic complex of I’m here and you're
there and let's keep it like that'. The unobtrusive glass baffles help
rather than hinder audibility.
The manager's room is bright and attractive and throughout
the branch the effect is of everything having been put to the best and most
attractive use. Occasional splashes of colour in the furniture relieve the
wood brown.
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At your service:
Miss K Donahue, Mr L C Bowyer, Mr K W Quigley (Manager)
and Mr D W Empson
Image © Martins Bank Archive
Collections
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Image
© Barclays Ref 0030-0867
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Mr
K. W. Quigley is naturally and, we believe, as justifiably optimistic about
the future as we are about his own prospects, for he is full of ideas and
he promptly agreed with our comment that District Office seemed to have
done him proud on staff.Mr D. W. Empson, who came from St James's Street
branch, is as full of confidence as his manager while Mr Bowyer, with an
eye to new business, was manning the counter with the air of a veteran. In Kathleen
Donaghue, a level-headed young lady who only joined the Bank at Gloucester
Road last October, the branch has the personification of counter attraction
and, what is much more to the point, the prospect of cashiering is no more
terrifying to her than was the transition from her native County Leitrim to
London. If Ealing branch goes like a bomb, it will do so on its
own initiative, owing nothing to the Vandervell works nearby on Western
Avenue.
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