The Intracacies of Old Money...by Brenda Walton

After showing a friend's grandchildren some old pennies I had they asked me how much they were worth in today's money. I went on to explain about pennies,shillings and pounds. This lead to mention of farthings, halfpennies, threepenny bits, sixpences, florins half crowns, ten shilling and pound notes. They were astonished.

Further conversation lead to explaining inches, feet, yards, chains, furlongs and miles for measurement of length followed by ounces, pounds, quarters, stones, hundredweights and tons for weight,along with fluid ounces, pints and gallons for liquid measures.

All seemed easy when I was a child at school and I used to relish

working out the maths problems set by the teachers combining the various systems.

Children today only have to cope with decimal systems, quite a simple idea – so why is it that I still ask “What's that in old money?” when given a measurement in centimetres or a weight in grams?

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