Pocket Money

By April Bradford

Today at 2:37 PM
Replies 1

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Note from the Editor:
This article was kindly written for the SDC by member @Doctor Alan.

Early days:
The first time I ever remember getting ‘pocket money’ was after we arrived as a family of ‘Ten-Pound Poms’ in Australia in 1955. We lived in a ‘housing settlement’ in Bradfield Park near Lindfield, adjacent to the migrant hostel. (We were very lucky to be able to have our own self-contained and sewered place to live because my father had a ‘government job’ as a teacher.)

Both my parents worked, leaving before my two brothers and I left for school and arriving home a couple of hours after we returned. The three of us – Brian (7), John (13) and myself (11) – had specific tasks to do after we got home from school on most days, and for this we were given ‘pocket money’. It was only a few shillings, (in my case 6 shillings and sixpence) but it allowed us to appreciate money and to foster the idea of ‘savings’ which we could use as we wished.

Apart from secretly paying for a window at the local school that I broke with my ‘Zoomerang’ (a three-bladed boomerang), and for some reason was dead scared of my parents finding out, I can only remember a few things I spent my few shillings on. Luckily for us, neither of my parents smoked or drank alcoholic rubbish, so we didn’t waste our savings that way. I think I used to buy a hot pie sometimes from the ‘pie-man’ who called around every Saturday yelling: 'Hot pies, Sausage rolls and Pas-tees'. Perhaps I used it for the 3d bus ride to Lindfield once in a while and for the ticket for the Saturday morning movies there, but mostly, I simply saved the money and bought birthday and Christmas presents for the family.

Did you ever earn pocket money? Image Credit: Shutterstock

Benefits:
Apparently most first-world countries have a similar system of pocket money, and some use it as payment for chores, like my parents. It’s reckoned to give a child – usually between the ages 9 and 11 – an appreciation of this essential commodity and generates responsible financial behaviour. I think it certainly did that for me. I would never think of wasting my money on cigarettes or drinks, and that’s stayed with me for all my 80 years – and probably is part of the reason why I’ve got to this age with relatively few medical setbacks. (I realise that longevity is mainly just luck, and I have no illusions on that score. One day, perhaps, the medicos will examine our DNA at birth and ‘weed out’ any undesirable nasties like Parkinson's, dementia or even cancer before they have a chance to start!)

I should add here a bit about why I never smoked. My older brother and I were arguing with my father about smoking. My father said: 'Oh, you’ll be offered a cigarette by somebody at school when you’re about 13 or 14, and you’ll want to be part of the crowd, so you’ll “try it”, and just like your uncle, you’ll probably become a chain smoker!' Of course, we argued that we’d never be like that, and my father said to me: 'I'll tell you what. I’ll give you £21 when you’re 21 if you haven’t smoked until then!' I was 9 years old at the time but came straight back with: 'Can I have that in writing?!' (£21 was about 2 weeks’ normal wage in 1954 – probably $2,000 in today’s money). He agreed and made out a sort of contract we called the ‘Magna Genta’ which I kept in my little box of foreign coins and was really glad to receive it when I got to 21 – as was my older brother since my parents always tried to treat us fairly. (My younger brother became a smoker, so didn’t receive it, but then, £21 wasn’t worth as much as the years went by. When I was 21, I was getting over £20 a week.) I think it was a really excellent idea. Together with the instilled idea to ‘save every penny’, it was great not to have spent my pocket money on tobacco!

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