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 We not only had some
hilarious lunch hours at this office, we also had some amusing coffee breaks
when, in small groups, we would troop out into Whitehall, up to the traffic
lights at Trafalgar Sq, cross over and walk back down to the Lyons Tea shop.
Here we had a gentle ten-minute break and returned much refreshed. Not that Lyons was exactly an inspiration; I recall, one
day watching a young woman behind the counter preparing bread rolls  for
lunch-time. She had them all laid out in neat rows, each with lettuce, tomato
and/or cucumber already inserted; Then she picked up a plate of ham slices to
complete the feast Now we have ail worked through a large pile of papers at
some time and, 1 am sure, licked a thumb in order to speed up the process.
This is exactly what that young woman did.
No one would believe me when I told them what I saw, but I never
touched a Lyons Salad after that.
At
the traffic lights where we crossed Whitehall there is a statue of Charles I,
and I always felt much sympathy for the sad little group who would assemble
in late winter on the anniversary of his execution. It was at this place where, one spring morning, as  we
were headed for Lyons and the road was being worked over by a gang of
navvies, one of our staff, a rather sweet, but very well-endowed, lass was
lagging behind and started to run to catch up which caused a considerable
wave of excitement to ripple through her blouse, and the navvies, one of whom
was heard to shout, “Hey Charlie! Look at them bleedin’ great udders”. This
was in the days when navvies wore tight-fitting belts to keep their trousers
at waist level.
 Branch
customers were instantly recognisable by their names, if nothing else. At Whitehall
branch they were composed of the Good and the Famous but, somehow, we lost
one completely.
The strong-room, where the cash and securities were
kept, was a modern affair, built inside the original strongroom of many years
ago. The outer area was the place where all the customers private boxes were
held and I remember on one occasion we disturbed one box and found that the
bottom had rusted away leaving the contents exposed -an old Admiral’s hat we
thought. No indication as to whose it might have been, a complete mystery,
despite research. (Hornblower’s perhaps?).
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 A
great treat which came my way on an irregular basis was a trip out in the
Bank Bullion Van. This was crewed by a driver, a couple of messengers, a
junior clerk and a Clerk in Charge. (Shades of Alec Guinness?). The van was loaded in the City and notes and coin were
delivered and collected to and from branches in town and the suburbs. Obviously great care was taken in handling the bullion
which was mostly packed for each branch, but coin was very bulky and any
surplus was picked up and/or delivered along with notes.
The
greatest care had to be taken when parking the van as, on one
never-to-be-forgotten
occasion, a £100 bag of silver was dropped in the gutter over a drain where it burst, with fearful, if hilarious consequences. The nearest to a moment of excitement on my journeys came
one day in the West End when the messengers recognised a very famous boxer,
Randolph Turpin, walking in Piccadilly; They whistled and cheered him and
were disappointed that he only looked somewhat taken aback, until I pointed
out that the van we were in was black and had only a very small, barred
window in the side so we could be mistaken for a load of prisoners on the way
to jail!! Lunch was a problem on these
journeys and on one occasion we stopped at a pub and two or three of us, by
turns, went together to have a meat pie and a pint. As we entered the, seemingly empty, pub a back door
opened and, as if from nowhere, the head of a large Great Dane appeared on
the counter accompanied by a very loud Woof! As the Landlady appeared I found
myself almost paralysed and quite alone for a few moments. Bank staff are not
the stuff of heroes.
 The
time came when it was decided that I should learn the trade of a cashier, and
I was duly given training by the two gents at the counter, each keeping a
fatherly eye upon my efforts. No problems until one day I was allowed to take
the pay-in of a very important account. As this
always involved cheques there could be no trouble; But not this day , there
was an unusual item (for this firm) of ten pounds in cash only there were eleven
one pound notes handed across. Try as 1 might 1 could not make the gent
concerned take back the extra single pound. He maintained that the amount
“could not be wrong”. Eventually Mr Clarke whispered to me, “We can’t
upset such an important customer, so it will have to go down as your error!!! Shortly after this
I expressed a desire to move to another branch, to gain more experience. This
was in discussion with Mr Clarke who thought it best if I said nothing to
anyone else and some weeks later I left Cocks Biddulph for a spell on Relief…
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As this is the last time we shall find Mich working at Cock’s Biddulph,
we have added a rare colour photo of the branch. In the next instalment, we
find Mich out on the road, working as a member of the relief staff. He is required to work in various departments
of the bank, as well as in branches and almost immediately, he is taken
advantage of by some very wily customers…
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