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Leicester Charles Street Drive in in 1959 (above) and as briefly uncovered by building work in 1993 (right, image courtesy Rob Hancock).
Being at the forefront of innovation, Martins Bank brings the concept of drive-in banking to Leicester in 1959, and the service becomes an instant and long running success. No expense is spared in designing a drive through space that is both functional and attractive, and that will stand the tests of both time and weather. Having acquired the former police station at Epsom in 1966, Martins opens a second drive-in branch there on 29 September bringing the convenience of banking by car to the south of England. The drive-in branches, yet another FIRST for the Bank, rank alongside MOBILE and pre-fabricated branches as innovations that enable Martins to reach its customers in modern and unconventional ways. Here, we look at both drive in facilities, and meet some of our people who go to extremes to be helpful to our motoring customers…
Drive on through… Things are not always as they seem. For the opening of the first Drive-In Bank at Leicester, and to the dismay and amazement of the staff of the branch, two girls are brought down from Liverpool, given expensive makeovers and placed behind the drive-in counter to add “glamour” to the many publicity shots that will be taken on opening day! Once drive-in banking becomes less an experiment and more a way of life, Martins Bank Magazine asks Sylvia and Maureen, the drive-in girls at Charles Street Leicester to tell readers in their own words about:					Summer 1965: Sylvia Butterworth and Maureen Lovett are the motorist’s friends at the Leicester drive-in…
Life at the Drive-In
The impressive exterior of Charles Street Leicester Branch, which houses the drive-in bank.							our drive-in branch attracted considerable publicity when it opened in 1959 and was certainly a most forward-looking development. Those who designed and built it overlooked nothing and after six years it does exactly what it was intended to do. We have, however, observed what many people before us have discovered—that no inanimate object has yet been invented which can cope with the unusual
A drive-in bank is, in principle, the simplest way for a driver to pay in or draw out without leaving his vehicle. At our branch, vehicles drive into a one-way covered passage at the side of the branch. In this passage is the cashier's window which has a two-way microphone and beneath it is a retractable drawer on which is a bar, 'Teller Call'. Pressure on this brings the cashier to the window but, in addition, a photo-electric ray sounds a buzzer in the office when a car approaches the window. When the transaction is completed the car moves away, turns right along the back of the branch and out into a side street. In the course of a day we see many cars of all sizes, shapes and ages but we lose sight of them once they leave the window. Round the back they could be up to anything and, the parking problem being what it is in any city, not surprisingly cars sometimes do just what they shouldn't do despite the imploring 'NO PARKING' notices. It is only for a few minutes of course, about ten usually, just while somebody nips across to somewhere. It's not really parking is it? Except to the next car which wants to get out, and the ones behind that.
Above and right: Vehicles drive the length of the building to reach the cashier’s window. This allows for orderly queueing to take place, and provides the best shelter for the motorist from adverse weather conditions. When the transactions are complete the motorist can exit straight back onto the road.
Cars can be temperamental and involve their drivers in embarrassing situations as on the day when, through the window, we saw a lady and gentleman exchanging names and addresses, presumably of insurance companies for both cars were slightly scratched, while a third car waited patiently to use the banking facility just out of its driver's reach. The cashier can extend or retract the drawer at will but if the drawer is left out for more than a few moments it very wisely retracts automatically. Despite encouragement by word and printed leaflet to prepare cheques and paying-in slips before arrival, this may not always be possible. One cannot do these things while halted at traffic lights, for example, and thus the customer, hastily completing his signature, may notice the drawer receding and decide on a last minute effort to catch the post. So far we have, by careful manipulation, avoided the additional presentation of a glove which from a cashiering viewpoint would not be strictly negotiable.
The Early Days
Minister of Transport Opens the Drive-In	Punch Magazine sees the lighter side of the idea							Banking by scooter quickly catches on at the Drive-in
Business is brisk on opening day						Two cashiers for the price of one
Weather plays a considerable part in the operation of the drive-in bank. Any covered passage-way will act as a wind tunnel and a gusting Force 8 can, by a peculiar shift of power and direction, create sufficient over-draught to absorb the biggest cheque. This happened once when the drawer was retracting, the cheque being whisked into the main street. For one horrible moment customer and cashier stared at each other in consternation, then the cashier acted. Another member of the staff set off in pursuit of the cheque while the cashier allayed the worst fears of the customer. Between gusts the cheque was retrieved and re-presented. Rain often presents a problem as people naturally wish to avoid getting wet. Our drive-in—and probably our drive-out as well, though we cannot see it —becomes a public shelter for pedestrians, mothers with perambulators, and watchful policemen with deceptively docile dogs. All of them indulge in a restless variation of 'family coach' on the arrival of each car. Humans are not alone in seeking sanctuary with us. For more than a week a cat became lodged in the roof of the drive-in, refusing to be enticed from its new-found home by the persuasiveness of an R.S.P.C.A. inspector, or by a tin of sardines generously provided by a member of the staff. Eventually, at dead of night, it responded to the combined charms of the Manager, the Messenger and its owner.
A number of publicity shots were taken on the opening day						So perhaps the Minister of Transport had an incredible feeling of déjà vu?
But cars provide our greatest interest, particularly the rare ones which speed in from the exit in playful defiance of all the signs. Others for some unfathomable reason find it possible to transfer or assign their effect on our photo-electric beam, so that they arrive at our window unheralded but cause an unsuspecting passer-by to produce an excruciating noise on our buzzer. And, of course, there are the cars which, when switched off while the customer transacts his business, later refuse to start. Through the cashier's window one can only smile encouragingly or register sympathy. Anything one might say in such circumstances would be wrong— things like 'Have you switched on ?' To the increasingly harassed customer the smile must seem more like a leer, and the look of sympathy one of disdain, but at the drive-in bank one quickly learns to be tactful. And so far the point has never been reached where we had to go out and push or telephone a garage for a tow. Taken all round our drive-in bank runs very smoothly both for our customers, who like it, and for us, who find it so interesting.
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the bank's second drive-in branch opened at Epsom on September 29. It stands well back in Ashley Road at the junction with Ashley Avenue, with a registry office on the opposite corner and a church and the Magistrate's Court across the way. This rather unusual combination is partly explained by the fact that the new branch stands on the site of the old police station. Even if some difficulty was experienced in obtaining sanction for change of use, despite the obvious 'lock-up', 'security' and 'custody' associations of the respective undertakings, the outcome has fully justified the trouble. The frontage has been laid out with stone paving, cobbles and beds for evergreen and flowering shrubs and once our customers adapt themselves to the in and out of the drive-in this will prove a highly popular innovation in the district. Epsom lies in what is sometimes termed the stockbroker belt—well outside the bingo belt but close to the gin and Jaguar belt, so to speak.
Ultra-cool: Banking by Zephyr at the Epsom drive-in. Long before the days of “would you like fries with that?” and the well meaning but mis-guided: “I’m sorry about your weight (wait) sir/madam”, Mr K P Marsh shows them how it’s done…		There are the Downs, the Racecourse and sufficient green belt to have kept the area mercifully insulated from becoming a suburb, and the number of estate agents' offices in this small township are an indication of the demand—and the price—for residential property. The shopkeepers are courteous, the train services to London frequent, and Epsom is altogether a good place to live in if one has-the means. The branch interior is spacious, with a rosewood counter fronted by white marble brickettes and dark glazed screens behind the counter space. Blue-green vinyl fabric covers two walls and, if the overall effect is somewhat clinical, the materials and finish throughout are worthy of what may justifiably be termed a prestige branch. Here the selection of the staff has been as imaginatively and successfully handled by London District as the Midland District handled the staffing of Peterborough branch which opened on the same day. Mr Brian du Feu, will soon have completed his third house move in four years—an indication of what progress in banking can sometimes involve. He was in the photographic business before joining the Bank and was for some years secretary of the Jersey Camera Club: his interests include hockey, tennis, badminton, surfing and skin-diving.
Mr Marsh Looks after another customer who is keen to see what drive-in banking at Epsom has to offer… (K. P. Marsh with Miss G. C. Leggett in the role of customer)
Mr Ian Fletcher joined the staff after six years at Chislehurst and Mr Kenneth Marsh, who has appeared frequently in magazine photographs of cricket, hockey or rugby teams, lives conveniently in Epsom as if by arrangement. Mr C. J. Butcher commutes cheerfully each day to Oxted with the help of his Renault-Banger and Miss G. C. Leggett, who joined the branch shortly before it opened, will tell any girl with ideas about the glamour of working in the Big City that a secretary's job in a London fashion house with travel costs of £2 a week for two years is a poor substitute for working at Epsom branch and living at home on Epsom Downs.
Quite naturally she wanted to try the London job and quite sensibly she packed it in: quite understandably Mr du Feu and his staff are very glad that she did. Epsom branch is off to a good start, and the business is likely to continue expansion on private and commercial lines. Our only regret about going there is that we cannot state how many accounts they have opened already, because one never knows who might read these words. But we now have a lot more sympathy for the sad-faced, milling crowds we passed on Hungerford Bridge and in Waterloo station on our way out that morning. They looked as if they had seen Epsom branch and were sorry they couldn't work there.					Above: B. R. du Feu (Manager), I. Fletcher and C. J. Butcher
As drive-in banks don’t seem to be have been around for the last few decades, we wondered about the fate of Martins’ pioneering efforts at Leicester and Epsom. We asked our friends at Barclays Group Archive what happened to these branches following the merger with Barclays… “Epsom Branch continued to offer its drive-in till until 1979, and the branch itself closed in 1981. The Leicester drive-in till at 81 Charles Street is last listed in 1988 - the branch closed in 1993 and the premises were acquired by Derbyshire Building Society” This means that Drive-in Banking at Leicester ran for 29 years, 1959-1988, and at Epsom for 13 years – 1966-1979. A combined total of 42 years – not bad for an experiment! In 1993, when the Barclays signs were taken down in Leicester, Martins’ own signage was revealed intact and certainly not looking out of place. Our friend Rob Hancock, a former Barclays Operations Manager, took this picture:
Image © Rob Hancock 1993 to date
For further examples of Martins Branches “now and then”, why not visit our pages for SHEFFIELD MOOR and LONGTON. Nowadays we are only too happy to “drive-in” to burger pizza and chicken joints, even cinemas, so why not a bank? Perhaps someone will resurrect the idea sometime soon…
Thank you, please call again…
© gut informiert 2007 to date