I laughed when I was asked to front campaign to promote high street voucher, my old primary school teacher would have been so proud

Frank Mitchell

The prepaid card is available for everyone in NI over 18

October 01 2021 04:30 PM

I had to laugh this week when I was asked to front a campaign to promote the new one hundred pound prepaid spend local card.

My old primary school teacher would have been so proud.

He once told me to never give up on believing that I might someday be recognised for having mathematical ability and there I was on Monday, making a short film advising 1.4 million people on how to spent a hundred quid each.

To be honest I would not have been the teacher’s first choice for the task. I struggled with maths in the same way Fermanagh did with hurling. I’d give it a go but I’d never get very far.

In fairness to Mr McArdle in P7 he never criticised my number blindness but during preparation for the 11 plus he was astounded when I cracked a mathematical sequence on the blackboard that none of the brighter kids could figure out.

He knew I could write a decent essay, recite Seamus Heaney and fill in every Irish county on a blank map but that was of no benefit when it came to passing the transfer test. You needed to be able to work out sequences. A series of numbers in a special order would be presented on the page and the trick was to spot the link between the numbers and write down the next two in the list.

I was useless at it. I was doomed.

Why then was I able to win a competition he set one wet morning just after break time. Mr McArdle held up a bag of brandy balls and promised it as prize to the first person to add the next two numbers to this list. ½, 1, 2, 5, 10…

The budding mathematicians started doubling numbers and adding others to try and come with the answer. All sorts of suggestions were being made as the entire class lusted after the brandy balls. I sat quietly looking at the blackboard wishing it had been a quiz about Ulster rivers or makes of tractors but it was another mathematical sequence where a formula had to be worked out and then some logic applied that linked all the numbers together.

I couldn’t be bothered but then like a lightning bolt it struck me. It was early February 1971 and on the 15th, Decimal Day would bring a change in the money. No longer would we have Thrupenny bits, sixpences and shillings we were going to be using that sequence on the blackboard. Those were the new coins. I shouted out the next two values. “50p and a pound”. The brandy balls were mine.

You may have worked it out at 20p and 50p but the good old 20p coin didn’t arrive until 11 years later. Somewhere on the long journey from my primary schooldays the half penny was ditched and now anything copper coloured is referred to by many as shrapnel.

The coins are rapidly becoming less relevant and the notes are looking over Her Majesty’s shoulder at our flexible friends who are pinned, swiped and flashed in this contactless world where spending money is as easy as waving goodbye.

The local economy is struggling. It needs all the help it can get and the pre-paid card is there for everyone over 18.

It’s time to give the shopkeepers and service providers in your town or village a boost. Hopefully everyone will make an effort to buy something different from somewhere different and with a bit of luck we’ll manage to go beyond the hundred pounds and dig into the coins, notes and cards that might have been used less frequently during the last eighteen months or so.

Every transaction over the next few weeks in a bricks and mortar business is vital for the local economy. Every spend helps. You don’t have to be a mathematician to know that it all adds up.

Frank presents U105 Phone In Monday-Friday from 9am-noon

I laughed when I was asked to front campaign to promote high street voucher, my old primary school teacher would have been so proud

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