The Last Bank In Town

There are a couple of Facebook groups that I belong to that are devoted to the history of my hometown, Romford, and apart from the fascinating pictures of the town over the last hundred and fifty years or so, there are regular comments about two aspects of life in the town that exercise, and sometimes even anger people. Firstly, is Romford in Essex or London? Well, until 1965, it was in Essex, but following the 1963 London Government Act, it was incorporated - with neighbouring Hornchurch - into the newly formed London Borough of Havering. A lot of people find this difficult to accept - especially since Romford is, to many people, an archetypal Essex town - but administratively it is in London, end of story.

The second subject that members of these Facebook groups frequently discuss is the waning of Romford Market, which opened as a sheep market in 1247.[1] These days it no longer trades in livestock and the number of stalls selling fish, meat, fruit and vegetables, clothes, toys and a whole range of other goods has sadly fallen away over the years. The reasons for the market's decline are many; competition from pound shops, discount supermarkets, and the wider availability of cheap clothing from stores like Primark. The traditional market users have got older, stopped going or moved away and the preference that many people have these days for one-stop, supermarket shopping makes them less likely to frequent the market on a regular basis. Almost perversely, those who most lament the decline seem to be those who use it the least - or not at all.

Romford Market, 1969. Photo: Romford Recorder

Thirty-five years or more ago, when I worked at Midland Bank's branch in the Market Place (now HSBC Bank), Wednesdays and Fridays -which along with Saturdays are market days - would be busy with traders paying in cash and changing notes for coins or vice versa. We had at least three, often four or more, cashiers working hard to serve the ceaseless stream of customers, not just stall holders, but publicans, shopkeepers, and the general public, all paying money in, or cashing cheques. Last Friday I popped into the branch to pay in some loose change that I had accumulated and bagged up, and was struck - as I am each time I go in there - by the changes that have been made to the banking hall and cashier's counter. The six counter positions that dominated the banking hall when I worked there are no more; just two positions now, tucked away in the far corner almost as an afterthought. And instead of the bustle of market traders and publicans, shopkeepers and office clerks queuing at each position, a single queue comprising just a handful of people, but as I stood there, with just three or four people in front of me, I was grateful for the fact that the banking hall was not thronged with customers because each transaction seemed to take an eternity.

HSBC Romford on a non-market day.

In the days when I was a bank cashier the transaction that I conducted last Friday would have taken less than a minute. Weigh the coin, tick off the amounts on the paying in slip, record the transaction on the old Lamson Paragon machine, stamp the slip and counterfoil, tear out the slip and return to the book to the customer: sixty seconds or less. Now, I watched the cashier weigh the coin, tick the amounts off on the paying in slip and then spend what seemed an absolute age tapping away at the keyboard in front of her, and then stamp my paying in book and return it to me, sans credit.

A Lamson Paragon machine, which was filled with special recording sheets and carbon paper to log cash transactions.

Like almost everything else in our lives, banking is almost unrecognisable compared to how it was in 1980, when I sat at the counter in Midland Bank, Romford. Then we had a team of back office staff processing the credits and the cheques we accepted from customers; now cashiers do so much more with each transaction and each one takes so much longer. In 1980 we had an Autobank dispensing various amounts of cash to customers, now there are not just cash dispensers, but machines to accept deposits of cash or cheques. And with online banking the need for customers to deal face-to-face with anyone in the bank has reduced and will, no doubt fall still further in the future, even removing the need to go to the bank to pay in a cheque.

Despite the popularity of online payment methods like Faster Payments, Paym, and PayPal, we still write over 470 million cheques a year in the UK, and in these days of fast, reliable, electronic payment methods, it still takes three days to clear a cheque and even after six days, that cheque could still be returned unpaid (bounce). Customers have complained about the perceived delay in cheques clearing for many a year, but that is all going to change this coming November when a one-day clearing cycle is introduced[2]. This will be possible since banks will exchange images of cheques presented to them rather than the physical instruments themselves, and that will also enable customers to deposit cheques by scanning them on their mobile phones and uploading them through their banking app.

The programme of branch closures that all of the major banks have embarked upon in recent years shows no sign of abating and our continued adoption of new technology such as banking apps is as significant a factor as any. If you embrace technology to the extent that you visit your bank only once or twice a year, you can scarcely be surprised if it closes. In my local area, HSBC closed their Upminster branch and Lloyds are soon to follow suit. In Collier Row, the only two banks who have a presence - National Westminster and Lloyds - will close their doors for the last time in the coming months. Lloyds say that their Collier Row branch has just 46 regular weekly personal and business customers - their Upminster branch has just 37 - while residents of Collier Row are also set to lose their Post Office: thirty-six other Crown Post Offices are also set to close nationwide. Once, most towns had their full complement of banks, these days if you can find one to walk into, the chances are it is the last bank in town.

A lot of people are understandably upset and angry when their local bank, building society or Post Office closes, but when footfall declines to the extent that it has at the Lloyds Bank branches where, on average, less than ten regular customers per day visit them, keeping them open makes no economic sense. The case for closing Post Offices is somewhat different. In the UK there are 11,500 Post Offices;  three hundred are Crown Post Offices, owned by the government, while the remainder are franchised. The Collier Row office is one of thirty-seven Crown offices that are being closed and will likely be replaced by a franchise. In 2016 Crown Post Offices lost £24million, and while most people see post offices as a public service whose availability ought not to be driven by profit, times have changed and like almost everything else, the balance sheet has the ultimate say.

The way we shop and the way we bank have changed immeasurably in recent years, so while we may lament the decline of the local market and the closure of our bank branches, the simple fact is that unless we use them - and increasingly we are not - we are going to lose them.

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[1] http://www.romford-market.co.uk/

[2] http://news.sky.com/story/new-system-will-mean-cheques-cleared-in-one-working-day-10810634

Just About Managing

Last September, the Resolution Foundation - a think-tank that describes itself as working "to improve the living standards of those in Britain on low to middle incomes" - said that there were six million families in the UK that were 'just managing.'[1] Inevitably these families were christened the JAM's, or the 'just about managing.' The report does not say how many of these families include someone who has had to take two jobs to make ends meet, but one imagines there are many, since according to an article in the Financial Times from January 2015, there were 1.2 million people with two official jobs - factor in those who moonlight and therefore don't declare their second income and the number will be significantly greater.

Chancellor Philip Hammond's Autumn Statement was supposed to offer help to the JAMs - there seems to be little evidence.

Naturally, the majority of those people who hold down two jobs do so through economic necessity: a few might be doing something they love and earning a little extra as a bonus, but for the bulk of second-jobbers, it is more likely that their two jobs probably pay minimum wage or just above, and they have been forced to take them purely to keep their heads above water. And in all probability, the number of people taking on second jobs will increase in the future. The proliferation of the gig economy and the popularity of zero hours contracts (popular with employers, if not with workers), the raising of the normal retirement age and changes to pension arrangements have, among other factors, dramatically changed the face of work in the UK in recent years.

But there is one thing that has not changed - and probably never will - and that is that while for a vast swathe of the population worrying about money, scrimping and saving, fretting about putting food on the table are a way of life, there is a section of society that is isolated and insulated from such concerns. And among that latter set are the people who make decisions that affect the former group, namely our Members of Parliament. Ironically, this group also includes some who have second jobs, and while there may be few who are impecunious, there will undoubtedly be some whose lifestyle and their reluctance to live within their means makes that second income a necessity. For many companies, the opportunity to engage an MP has less to do with what they can do in the office or in the boardroom and more about what they can do for the company in Westminster.

How the Evening Standard announced George Osborne's appointment.

Whether or not MPs ought to be able to take on a second job is debatable; can a sitting MP realistically represent his constituents properly if he has employment obligations elsewhere? The question has been raised again recently following the announcement that George Osborne, the former Chancellor of The Exchequer and sitting Conservative MP for Tatton in Cheshire, has been appointed editor of The Evening Standard. This, on top of his role as economic adviser to the American global investment management corporation, BlackRock - albeit that that job (which pays him £650,000 per annum) takes up just one day a week - and presumably, often not even that. In addition, Osborne is regularly paid to make speeches and has a salaried position with the McCain Institute for International Leadership. In total, his editorship of the giveaway London evening newspaper will be his sixth job. According to Osborne's website, "George holds regular surgeries at locations across the constituency for Tatton residents." But so far this year Osborne has reportedly had just five engagements in his constituency - three of which were on the same day -and holding down five jobs apart from his duties as MP suggests that the people he represents will see him rarely.

How George's local paper might have reported the news.

When I heard the news of Osborne's appointment as editor of the Standard I immediately assumed that he would be resigning as an MP, that in the wake of his sacking as Chancellor and his return to the back benches he would be looking for an alternative to politics. I assumed that he had decided that remaining an MP would not be sustainable while also being editor of a daily newspaper: I doubt I was alone in that misapprehension. Former Tory Cabinet Minister David Mellor, writing in a blog on the LBC website, expressed surprise that Osborne thinks he can juggle his new role and his other jobs with his existing commitments to his constituents. But Mellor says that MPs should not be barred from having and form of second job, because, he says, "There’s actually no reason for MPs to be full time. There isn’t actually enough for them to do, particularly with the money they now have to employ staff to do their correspondence and casework etc."

David Mellor

I am sure that a lot of very hard-working MPs will not recognise David Mellor's view, but if he is right, that many MPs do not have enough to do to fill the hours, then we are being seriously short changed: £74,000 for a part-time jobs seems a bit excessive, but if this were put to them, MPs would vote to reduce their hours to fit the work they actually do, rather than trim their salaries.

"I'm rich, rich I tell you!"

It seems that in order to fulfil his obligations to his new employers, Osborne will need to be at his desk by 5am, and work till mid-day before heading for Westminster - if indeed he bothers to attend: Labour MP for Bassetlaw, John Mann has accused Osborne of being "invisible" in Parliament while his boss, Jeremy Corbyn said, "The appointment makes a mockery of the independence of the media." I'm not sure how independent any of our media is anyway, but Osborne's appointment, less than a year after he was poster boy for the Remain campaign in the EU referendum, suggests that the editorial policy of the Standard is going to especially critical in its examination of Theresa May's Brexit negotiations with Brussels.

I can't imagine that all of Osborne's new colleagues at the Evening Standard are overjoyed at the prospect of having someone with no journalistic experience as their new boss either. Having worked in offices where new managers, with no previous experience of banking, were parachuted and having this justified on the grounds that managing people and processes is generic and requires no prior knowledge of the business, I can vouch for the fact that there is certain tension as a result. I expect Osborne's reception at the Standard to be indifference at best. He certainly won't be popular, but I suspect he is used to that.

Since we live in a time when the media is under attack for bias and the alleged circulation of fake news, and when the standing of politicians has reached a similarly low ebb, it is perhaps appropriate that the two worlds meet as a result of Osborne entering journalism:  maybe the two of them deserve each other.

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[1] http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/media/press-releases/britains-just-managing-families-have-experienced-a-13-year-income-squeeze/

I Shan't Forget This Trip!

During the long summer holidays of my schooldays, my parents would occasionally take me on a day trip into London. These outings would often include a visit to a museum: The Science Museum was my favourite, although The Natural History Museum and Imperial War Museum were good too. I did not enjoy The Victoria & Albert quite so much. These outings would also usually include a visit to a newsreel cinema. Long gone now, these theatres showed newsreels and cartoons rather than feature films: there was one at Victoria Station and another at Waterloo[1] and I would laugh and laugh until my sides ached watching the antics of Tom & Jerry, Bugs Bunny et al. The newsreel theatres are now a thing of the past and no doubt many people have never heard of them, let alone remember them.

Victoria Station Cartoon Cinema: it closed in 1981

Lunch was usually sandwiches my mother had made, but there would sometimes be a treat at a Lyons Corner House before we made our way home. We would pack a lot into our day, and I remember a phrase we would associate with the day, and which I think came from the Rupert Bear comic strips, which was "I shan't forget this trip!" I thought back to those days last week, when Val and I had one of those days where we covered a lot of ground and saw three shows.

Some months ago I booked tickets to see Derren Brown's show, Derren Brown: Underground  at the Charing Cross Theatre, a show he is doing preparatory to making his debut on the New York stage. Which I completely forgot about when I applied for tickets to see Jeffrey Archer interviewed for the BBC's World Book Club on the same day. And then we got tickets to see a recording of The Now Show, also at the BBC, again on the same day. Logistically this was potentially tricky. Obviously, having paid for tickets to see Derren Brown, that show could not be missed, but fortunately The Now Show was a lunchtime recording with World Book Club in the late afternoon, scheduled to finish at 6.30, leaving an hour before the show at the Charing Cross Theatre, and since it is only a thirty-minute walk from Broadcasting House to Charing Cross, it worked out fine.

We walked from Liverpool Street  and along the South Bank to Embankment in glorious March sunshine before catching the tube to Oxford Circus and on to the BBC to see The Now Show, a topical stand-up and sketch show for those of you unfamiliar with it.[2] Inevitably this included references to Donald Trump and Brexit, although jokes about the former are becoming increasingly stale, after all how much mileage is there in humour about someone who is in many ways beyond parody? The Budget and the upcoming French Presidential election came in for treatment, and there was a (partly) serious piece about covert surveillance and 'wire tapping' with intelligence specialist Julian Fisher, a former intelligence officer who worked on the Channel 4 show, Spies.

Jeffrey Archer as he appears on his Twitter profile.

After a stroll in Regents Park - it was a beautiful Spring afternoon - it was back to the BBC for Jeffrey Archer on World Book Club, talking about his 1979 novel, Kane and Abel, which has sold over 34 million copies and is on its one-hundredth reprint. The recording will be transmitted later in the year on the BBC World Service. It is well worth a listen; Lord Archer may not be everyone's cup of tea and as a writer he has sometimes been dismissed as unsophisticated, but boy can he tell a story, both on paper and in the flesh. Asked about plotting novels, Archer said that basically he doesn't, on the basis that if he doesn't know which direction his book is going in, then the reader is unlikely to. It is a world away from the image one sometimes gets - and hears - of authors scrupulously plotting their stories using spreadsheets or covering walls with Post-It notes. But Archer is not the only multi-million selling author to claim not to plot their novels meticulously. Val and I saw Lee Child - bestselling author of the Jack Reacher novels - speak at Waterstones some months ago, and he too said that he tends to let his stories take him where they will, too.

Val and me with Lee Child

Apart from plotting, some writers are more painstaking with their research than others. When we saw Lee Child for instance, he told a story about a particular tree surrounded by railings in a Washington cemetery with such assurance that one was convinced that he had gone to great lengths to research its history...and then he told us he had made it all up. Sometimes it isn't necessary for a story to contain absolutely, 100% historical or factual information, as long as it is convincing, and unlike Ian Fleming's James Bond stories, doesn't try to make you believe that gay men cannot whistle, or that being covered head to toe in gold paint will kill you. Jeffrey Archer made the point that some research can be done retrospectively; if a character takes a flight to Boston, then a cab into town before checking into a hotel, the writer doesn't need to know the name of the airport, how long the cab ride takes or the name and location of the hotel when they write, that can be done later.

Derren Brown: Underground at The Charing Cross Theatre. Photo: Rebecca Woods

After a brisk walk from the BBC to Charing Cross to meet our daughter, it was two hours of watching Derren Brown baffle his audience with his usual mixture of illusion, deception and apparently psychic readings. To avoid spoilers in case you are seeing the show in London or New York, I won't go into any detail, except to say that we spent the whole show saying "How did he do that?" including the part where he told members of the audience - my daughter among them - facts about themselves which it was difficult to work out how he had gleaned. Derren Brown makes it clear that he does not claim any psychic powers, nor that anyone claiming to have them actually does for that matter, but it is easy to see why people - particularly those who want to believe - could imagine that entertainers with his talent could have real psychic powers.

It was quite a day, three very different shows and nine miles of strolling through London; as Rupert would have said, "I shan't forget this trip!"

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[1] Victoria Station Cartoon Cinema http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/1248/

[2] You can listen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08h0g4t for as long as it remains on the BBC iPlayer

Quirks and Eccentricities

I have to say, I think that Ramones t-shirts look pretty good, and judging by the number of people I see wearing them, I'm not alone; likewise, Guns N' Roses and Rolling Stones, whose t-shirts are a common sight. But you won't see me wearing a shirt emblazoned with any of those bands' logos. Not that I have anything against them, it's just that the band t-shirt is an item of clothing that falls squarely into one of my quirkier thought processes.

We all have our foibles, quirks and eccentricities and mine are as arbitrary and random as anyone else's: when it comes to music, and especially music related apparel, my idiosyncrasies go into over-drive. At one time I would not countenance wearing a band's t-shirt unless I had seen them live: that has become relaxed a bit, but I still wouldn't wear one unless I owned one of their records or had seen them live. This is one reason why I don't own a Ramones, Guns N' Roses or Stones t-shirt. Even now I would not wear a tour t-shirt unless I had seen the band on that particular tour.

The flip side of these quirks is that when I go to a gig, I like to get a souvenir, which invariably is a t-shirt. I don't buy programmes or brochures, as these tend -in my experience - to be just an over-priced collection of photos that I would take home and put in a cupboard, never to see the light of day again. I wouldn't buy a badge as I rarely - if ever - wear them, which just leaves the t-shirt. So I hover at the merchandise stand, dithering over which design to chose, wondering if £20 isn't a bit steep, before deciding that if I don't buy one, I'm going to wish I had by the time I get home. So I buy one...in large, since experience shows that despite the fact that in most things I am a medium, when it comes to t-shirts at concerts, the medium is too snug and unlike buying a shirt in a shop, there's not much chance of exchanging the item if it doesn't fit.

When you go to a gig you always see people in band related clothes, and if I thought about it rationally, I'd expect an extension of my eccentricity about what t-shirts I wear and when to be that I would only wear a t-shirt related to the band I'd gone to see - assuming I had one. This only occurred to me when my daughter questioned why I wore a Big Big Train t-shirt to a Frost* concert - answer, I didn't have a Frost* t-shirt (I do now).

But my quirks don't end at tour t-shirts. When it comes to concerts, I've got some both about the gig itself and about live albums. I've got a bit of a 'thing' about seeing a band if I'm not familiar with their music. I went to see Marillion many years ago, just about the time they released Fugazi and can remember fretting that I wouldn't know the songs from that album as it had just been released. I'm not quite as fretful now, although as I am going to see Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman soon, I've been scrutinising the set lists from the gigs they have already played to check that I'm familiar with what they are likely to perform. The same goes for the Steve Hackett tour - I'm seeing him at the London Palladium in May. Fans tend to be divided about the content of live shows: some like to see bands play stuff they are familiar with, and I tend to fall into that category, while others prefer newer material.

Then there are live albums. I don't actually own many - less than a dozen of my 350 odd CD's are recordings of live shows - and as rule I don't buy live albums by bands I haven't seen (yes, I know it's silly, but that's how I am), the only exception being Simple Minds for some reason that I cannot explain. But when a band release a live album from a tour that I saw, then I am likely to buy it.

I was there.

I'm not sure if this sort of behaviour of mine is harmlessly eccentric or borderline obsessive (you decide), but it extends to needing to get a programme at football matches I go to if one is available - although I'm not as obsessive as someone I have heard of who went to a game, found that all of the programmes had been sold, so went home without watching the match - even if a great deal of time I just flick through them and store them away without reading them properly.

In the days before it was possible to record TV programmes, I would often avoid starting to watch a series if I thought there was even a remote possibility that I might not be able to watch every episode. Even today, with HDD recorders, catch-up services and the like, I pass up on some shows because I expect them to disappear from terrestrial TV and transfer to a channel I don't subscribe to after a season or two, meaning that I may not be able to see every episode[1]. Sometimes I have a bit of a completer compulsion; I dislike starting something and not being able to finish it, although sometimes that it unavoidable, such as when a show is cancelled at the end of a season, having been left on a cliff-hanger, leaving me - and the rest of the audience - high and dry.[2]

But, despite the quirks and eccentricities that I realise that I have, there are a lot of people whose compulsions, obsessions and idiosyncrasies are way, way more extreme. And for many people these quirks - which may begin harmlessly enough, but end up escalating - are debilitating conditions that result from 'rules' that they set themselves in how they live, be it where they sit, what they eat and how they eat it, about how their home or their office is organised - the list is endless, and so I must be grateful that my quirks are (mostly) harmless.

I'm still not buying a Ramones t-shirt, though.

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[1] Viz; Chuck

[2] This Life, Moonlight, Journeyman, to name but three.

A Midland Odyssey - Part Ten - The Diploma

When I joined Midland Bank in 1976 inflation was running at 16.5%, and even before I started work I got a double-digit pay increase, and I also received an increase - albeit a more modest one - for passing my A-levels. Having A-levels also made me eligible for Day Release to study for my Institute of Bankers (IOB) exams, and as it was often said that with an IOB qualification one's promotion prospects would be improved, I decided to sign up for the course. Except that my A-levels meant that I was exempt from part of the first stage and would have to take a Conversion Course instead and the only local college offering it - Redbridge College - ran it on Fridays, and the branch accountant was not willing to let me be absent every Friday. Instead I ended up at North East London Polytechnic in Barking taking a Higher National Certificate in Business Studies (HNC), which I was assured would be accepted by the IOB as equivalent to the Conversion Course.

North East London Polytechnic in Barking as was: it has subsequently been converted to housing.

I passed the HNC but did not pursue the IOB exams; by the time I was twenty I felt I had had enough of studying and resented the Wednesday evening classes and having to miss nights out to do homework, so I dropped out.

Fast forward to 2004 and I learned that HSBC ran - in conjunction with the IFS School of Finance[1] - a course which led to a Diploma in Business Analysis and Operations (DipBAO) and since my job title was Business Analyst, it seemed an appropriate course to study. The other members of my small team also expressed an interest, but in the end it was only me that signed up. And I did so not because I thought that gaining this qualification would enhance my career prospects - at the age of 46 and comfortable in my role I wasn't really looking for a drastic step up the ladder - but because I thought it would be interesting and, after nearly thirty years after undertaking any academic study, I wanted to know if I still had the skills to learn a subject and pass exams.

The course was split into four modules: Managing People In Organisations, Managing Information, Business Analysis, and Project Management. The first two elements comprised distance learning, and to pass required completing two assignments and taking a formal exam. The second two elements required taking HSBC courses in the subjects and then producing an assignment.

The course textbook and other resources for Managing People In Organisations arrived in the post, and one Saturday afternoon in the summer of 2004 I sat down and started work. Other books were purchased - second hand through Amazon - and I quickly realised that the amount of commitment required was not insignificant. And when the football season started, Saturday afternoons were not a practical time for study, so learning became a weekday evening pursuit - not easy after a full day at work and having spent the early evening cooking and doing other chores. By the time it came to start revising for the exam - the first I had taken in three decades - it became obvious that I could either get a full night's sleep or study, but not both. I would start revising at about ten o'clock and go on till two or three the next morning, fretting all the time that nothing seemed to be going in. What I found remarkable was that while I was getting my few hours sleep, my mind would somehow order my thoughts and lo and behold, come morning there was more that I could recall than I would have thought possible when I went to bed. Of equal concern as whether or not I could retrieve the necessary information in the exam room, however was, could I write for three hours without getting writer's cramp? Nowadays I rarely use a pen to write anything longer than a shopping list, and even twelve years ago, I was using a keyboard much more than a biro, so part of my exam practice was simply sitting down and writing for long periods; it is harder than you imagine.

As it happens, the exam seemed to go quite well. Our course tutor - whom we only actually met twice - was on the ball in predicting which areas of the syllabus would be likely to come up (more so than the tutor for the second module, Managing Information, whose advise I by and large ignored, and was glad I did) but even so it was with some trepidation that I logged on to the IFS website some time later to find out my result. To my surprise and delight, I had not only passed, by I was awarded a Distinction. It was my best result, as although I passed each of the other modules, it was not with such good scores. In part I would put that down to my having no experience of managing people, and I was therefore able to treat the subject as a purely academic exercise, whereas with the others - Business Analysis in particular - I had preconceptions and my own ideas that did not necessarily fit with the course objectives.

The Business Analysis and Project Management courses took place at the bank's offices in Hoyle Street, Sheffield and their training centre at Bricket Wood in Hertfordshire (neither of which the bank occupies any longer). The courses were hard work - at Bricket Wood we had to work evenings and one weekend - but the effort paid off, because I passed.

HSBC's former offices in Hoyle Street, Sheffield. Photo: Terry Robinson

My HSBC colleagues who also received their diplomas were:

Heather Batson, Fakhra Brisby, Andy Clark, Martin Cleary, Maria Coulson, Emma Frith,

Michael Griffin,  Jo Haskins, Owen Hatton, Glynn Neale, Simon Mitchell, Ross Neads

Julie Parsons, Cathy Patton, Jenny Penn, Jeremy Ransom, Paul Richardson

In the picture above are (left to right) Jenny Penn, Fakhra Brisby and Mike Griffin. Unfortunately the name of my colleague standing immediately to my left escapes me.

And then I had to rent a gown and mortar board (not cheap!)so that on  Friday 16th March 2007, I could go to Southwark Cathedral and receive my diploma - not the real thing, that arrived some months later after some issue with printing the hologram on the actual certificate - enabling me to add the letters DipBAO, after my name. Technically, I can't use the letters since I am no longer a member of the IFS (I declined their offer to pay an annual membership fee of over £100 for that right, plus their magazine).

My qualification did not translate into any career advancement,  although the bank did give me a decent bonus that year (not anywhere near monstrous sums that the press love to pillory the profession for, of course). More than anything else after I finished my studies, I was left with a gratifying sense of achievement, and I would say to anyone who later in life and many years after they finished their years of formal study, considers studying for any sort of qualification, go for it - the lack of sleep is worth it.

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[1] Formerly the Chartered Institute of Bankers (CIB) and subsequently IFS) IFS is/was the Institute of Financial Services.