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In Service: Unknown until approx 23 February 1970
Banking at the cradle of Christianity…
  Martins bank is known for a number
of notable FIRSTS – computers, drive-in
banking, Martins Auto Cashier and so on – so it probably won’t surprise you
to learn of another “first” at one of the most Northerly outposts of the
bank: The Holy Island Banking Service.
By car, over road and sand flats, two members of the Berwick upon
tweed Branch staff journey to bring Martins Bank to its customers on Holy
Island! This surely takes going to
extremes to be helpful to a whole new level, and it all seems inconceivable
in the more dangerous times of twenty-first century banking, but yes, it
really did happen. In 1965 Martins
Bank Magazine itself takes a trip to Lindisfarne, learns about the hardiness
of the Holy Islanders, and accompanies the Staff as they drive around the
Island dispensing the helpful extremes of Martins’ banking services…
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  We joined Mr T. H. Donkin, our manager, and Mr D. Clark of the relief staff, on a singular
banking service to Holy Island, travelling by car from Beal across the causeway and the sand at low tide to call at
hotels and boarding
houses where in the holiday season proprietors
are sometimes too busy to travel to the mainland.
Lindisfarne, the cradle of Christianity in Northumbria, has a population of 250 who at the time of our visit seemed mostly concerned with the artistes
and technicians of a London film
company spending some weeks on
making Cul-de-sac, and on
that day monopolising the 400-year-old castle. The Holy Islander is tough and adaptable. He can man a lifeboat, run a
hotel bar, manoeuvre a duck punt,
grow potatoes, drive a car and
exchange pleasantries with a French film actress. He and his fellow Northumbrians are not the products of the welfare state but of a varied
and often violent history. Direct
and dependable, there is little wonder that they go a long way. Even in
banking!
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