Machine skills

This was the keypad I learned to use when they sent me away to learn machine skills back in 1968.

 

As you can see, there are a few more keys to use, but it's simple once you know how.

From the left hand side, the first nine columns are for pounds, the next two light coloured columns are for shillings, and the right hand column and a bit are for pence, so you can enter up to £999,999,999-19-11d in one go. Each column has buttons marked 1 to 9.

Operating it is a doddle. press the keys corresponding to the each item you want to add, eg £110-9-6 and pull the lever. repeat as needed and the total is in the little windows at the bottom (shown as white dots in the photo. Sorry but pictures of these ancient machines are hard to find)

The amount can be entered using one finger, but speed comes when you use all your fingers to depress the keys in one movement. It's easy to stretch your hands so that they can cover all the keys. The next thing to learn is to read the amount to be entered as one figure. The human brain can read long combinations of letters and recognise them as words, and it can read long combinations of numbers as well.

So you look at the amount and not at the keyboard. You use the mark on the 5 button to guide your fingers and you see the amount and form the shape of the number and press. The illustration I used is for a mechanical version that needed a crank handle to operate. There were electric versions where you touched the motor bar with your little finger to record the amount. With practice it was amazing how quickly one could list cheques, and the skill never leaves you.

Imagine a mechanical machine that consisted of a keyboard like this-

 

and this keyboard surrounded by an array of metal boxes (you can just make out a couple of them in the picture). Anything up to two dozen different boxes. Each of these boxes has the electro-mechanical equivalent of the operating handle in the earlier machine (see above).

This is an NCR Proof Machine, a noisy, clanking whirring monster of a machine that sorted all the cheques that had been paid in into the different banks. One box for Barclays, another for Lloyds, etc. There were a lot more banks in the 1960s. The Westminster Bank and the National Provincial banks merged to form the Natwest bank in the late 1960s. Many other famous names disappeared at the same time. At the end of the day's business, each bank's cheques were tallied up and sent to the Central clearing house. Each bank would present bundles of cheques and receive cheques back. The cheques physically changed hands. Those cheques were then sorted into branches and sent to each branch to be cleared. That's why it took a week for the cheque to be cleared. Two days to arrive at the drawer's branch, one day to be accepted, two days if it were refused.

So why, in these days of computers and instant transfers, and when cheques no longer have to be presented at the drawing branch, why does it still take a week to clear?

The mechanical Proof machine was something to behold. You knew you'd arrived if you were judged sufficiently skilled to be able to operate it. You needed to be quick and accurate.

Speed and accuracy. Where have I heard that before?

As computers became smaller and more powerful and ways were found to speed up the input at branch level, these machines were phased out. Now the cheque is to be phased out.

And one day, cash will go as well.