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  King’s Lynn has special memories for our editor, who worked there for
Barclays when it became the first bank in the town to open once more on
Saturday Mornings in 1982, under the Barclays on Saturday
banner. This ended a thirteen year
gap without a Saturday service. King’s Lynn always was an attractive
office, and one of the few Branches of Martins Bank in the East of England;
it still displays the Grasshopper and Liver Bird Coat of Arms on its doors
today, even though the business transacted behind them changed a long time
ago to that of a fashion retailer.
In the main external image we see something that used to be
commonplace in so many of our towns – a main
road outside the branch. Long
since filled in by pedestrianisation, King’s Lynn High Street now fights
the same battle as most of the rest of the UK – how to stop the decline in
footfall, and the loss of quality shops and services. For our feature, we
visit King’s Lynn Branch in happier times - whilst the paint is still
wet! In the Summer of 1956 Martins
Bank’s new Manager and staff are getting used to their new branch…
  We travelled to King’s Lynn on 6th July and, once
again, our travel plans seem to have caused the maximum amount of inconvenience,
for the train by which we chose to travel was scheduled to take so much
time on the last stage of its journey that Mr. Goodband motored out to
Sutton Bridge and collected us there—a very pleasant way from our point of view of doing the last
thirteen miles of the journey. The day of our
visit was not one of the market days and we were able to see this very busy
little place under much more pleasant conditions than when its extremely
narrow and tortuous streets are crowded with vehicles and people.
King’s Lynn is unusual in being the possessor of two market
places: The Tuesday Market and The Saturday Market. The former is a fine
square in which all the big banks are situated: the latter is smaller, more
picturesque and the stalls display their colourful wares in the shadow of
the fine old twin-towered church of St. Margaret’s and of the ancient
Guildhall in which repose King John’s Cup and Sword and the Regalia (not
that lost in the nearby Wash).
At the entrance to the church one notices flood levels marked
on the stones of the porchway, the 1953 stone recording the fact that the
church stood in several feet of water.
A calculation showed that if our branch had been there in 1953 it
too would have been flooded. There
is also an important cattle market and a tiny fishing fleet, but though
there are about a hundred butchers’ shops in the town, fish is hard to come
by; a fact which struck us as being rather curious. We first had the
pleasure of meeting Mr. Goodband on the occasion of our visit to Oxford
branch in 1950. On that occasion we said about him: “We are all
familiar with the man who doesn’t know what he wants but is fed up with
what he has got, and it is refreshing to meet a man who knew what he wanted
and having got it is determined to enjoy it.” The remarks still stand, and have turned
out to be prophetic for he assures us that they have been fulfilled.
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A native of nearby Grantham, he is now batting on his home
ground, more or less. But while he likes being where he is, Mr. Goodband
has that disposition which enables him to settle happily anywhere and to
make the best of his circumstances whatever they may be.
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Image
© Barclays Ref 0030/1500/0002
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In this he is ably supported by his wife, a Londoner, but not
one of those parochial Londoners who cannot be happy away from the Capital. We were very pleased to meet her and to
have the pleasure of entertaining them both to dinner. Mr. P. J. Thorpe,
second-in-command, commenced his service at Brighton in 1936 and after over
six years’ war service and a further spell at Brighton, went to Fenchurch
Street in 1950. Housing has its own special difficulties in King’s Lynn,
there being little new building, and the competition of nearby American Air
Force stations for available existing accommodation has rendered the
position extremely tight and prices somewhat exorbitant. At present, while
the search is on, Mr. Thorpe has left his wife in Ipswich with her people
and he and the third man, Mr. N. H. Harvey, are living in a caravan on the
outskirts of the town.
Miss S. E. Vince is a local girl who has been
with us since the branch opened. She has entered happily into the scheme of
things and enjoys her work.
A quiet farewell for Mr
Prentice…
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 Retiring without ceremony as Manager of King’s Lynn Branch on
31 July after nearly 44 years’ service,
Mr Prentice entertained friends and colleagues at his home where he was
presented with a cheque. Entering
the service at Dartford in 1923, he had spent all his banking life in the
London district with the exception of the war years. Pro Manager at Soho Square in 1948, and
at Gracechurch Street in 1952, he spent six years as a visiting inspector
before being appointed in 1962 as Manager at King’s Lynn where his friendliness
and approachability were always appreciated.
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Waxing and waning…
 The days of sealing documents with wax may have reduced to only a few
occasions in the world of today, but in the 1960s, each branch of Martins
had its own supply of wax, embossed with MARTINS BANK LIMITED, which could be melted and applied to documents requiring the
official seal of the bank to make them legally binding. This particular box of wax came from
King’s Lynn Branch, and whilst (sadly) each stick has long since been
broken or crack apart, the ornately
decorated box still has something of an air of the officialdom of document
sealing about it!
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Image
© Martins Bank Archive Collections
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 Not quite so “Then and Now” (as we see in our usual feature), King’s Lynn is shown
here in 1980 following a minimal and sympathetic rebrand under Barclays.
That main road has already made way for reasonably attractive tiles and the
march of the pedestrian shopper, and the empty building to the left was
once a branch of MacFisheries, another household name that has left our
high streets – also now most memories – for good, having traded in fresh
fish, 1918 to 1979…
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Images
© Barclays Ref 0030/1500
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