The Bank Job

It was a Bank Job.

I was an impoverished student and the prospect of earning some cash over the long, drawn out and expensive summer vacation would be most welcome. I had been asked to act as a sort of look-out checking on the staff at a small branch in a market town, about 20 miles from where I lived.

Before you make a judgement on my apparent descent into the criminal fraternity I should point out that the Bank Job was actually a paid job working in a bank.

I would also have to act as general dogsbody in fetching and carrying, making extravagant numbers of cups of tea and coffee, answering the phone, filing away papers, making my presence known to any dodgy characters entering the building but for the most part of the long 8 hour days occupying the former Managers Office and playing with the swivel chair, paper clips, elastic bands and supposedly doing a bit of course work before my return to Polytechnic.

The day would start early with a drive in the cashiers car from the regional branch to the sleepy market town sub-branch. The usual staff contingent was only two persons and my employment was to provide cover for one of them whilst on their annual leave.

Pauline, the full time employee was very chatty and amiable although for the duration of the car journeys over the summer I quickly adopted a stance of nodding and agreeing with everything she said about her life, relationships, home life,social life and so-on which appeared to be on an endless and repetitive loop. There was some excitement when her car got stolen overnight and we had to make alternative arrangements to get to the bank. That day was just a cacophony of incoming phone calls from the Police on the procedure to recover a burnt out vehicle from a public open space in Nottingham, some 120 miles away which had been the dumping ground by the perpetrators, apparently a group of boys from the local Borstal who had wanted to go home for a couple of days.

Pauline knew everyone who came ino the branch. This fact made my security duties very easy. If the heavy outer door to the street creaked and squeaked open and there was no cheery 'hello' and fraternisation on first name terms with the customer then I would be on alert. My cheek pressed up against the back of the door of the Managers Office allowed me to squint through the fish-eye viewing hole to monitor events. The distorted image gave everybody the appearance of an abstract Gerald Scarfe character.

The town was a smallish one but with a thriving weekly market in the square directly outside the bank. This drew in large numbers of the population from the surrounding rural areas and they were always keen to withdraw their cash and have a binge on the traders stalls selling domestic goods, out of sale date provisions , ironmongery, last years fashions and sweets.

It was often the case that there was a large queue snaking its way through the compact banking hall in front of Pauline's sole position. If I wandered through, as nonchalantly but as authoratatively as possible the waiting customers would fidget and surge as though they expected me to open up another cashier window. Their disappointment in my lack of banking ability was evident to see but they never chuntered or grumbled as they might be disposed to do in the supermarket, Post Office or Doctors Surgery.

What did stir up some frustration was the arrival of a local shop-keeper towards the end of business carrying one or two fist fulls of cotton cash bags. The contents had to be carefully weighed and counted, lotted up and justified. Not in itself an arduous task unless of course, as was inevitably the case, the bags contained loose copper coinage, lots of it and usually a few stray foreign coins and washers.

The town also had a large and well respected Public School and the pupils would come in on a regular basis to cash a cheque from their wealthy parents or undertake a transaction to pay for a ski-ing holiday or a holiday at the family retreat in some exotic part of the world. They were most polite and smartly attired in a pale grey blazer and trouser even out of normal school hours.

On the outskirts of the town was a large industrial estate including a caravan factory. The production models were twin axled, sizeable and luxurious and particularly popular with the Traveller population. Payment for the latest version, chromed and shiny was always a cash purchase and the factory owner would send a couple of his lads to pay in wads of £50, £20 and £10 notes. Pauline looked like she would have preferred to put on gloves to handle the monies and she would try not to breathe in during the whole process. Her face would become almost as blue as the £20 pound notes as she fought the natural urge to breathe over the mass of scrunched up, soiled and sometimes fake notes. I had to watch the position after such a deposit whilst she washed and scrubbed her hands in the staff room.

As a job it was not particularly taxing. I did became a bit of a clock watcher but mainly from a hunger point of view as I had usually finished off  my packed lunch before 10am and was not able to leave the branch to re-stock at the local shops. The delicious aroma of freshly baked bread and cakes would waft in on the breeze when the door was opened from the shop just up the street. If I stood on the managers desk I could just see the townspeople going about their business with a pastie, meat pie or a vanilla slice in their hands. This was most tantalising and frustrating on my part.

The grand old Bank premises is now a restaurant having fallen victim to the combination of a Head Office rationalisation of retail banking, the take-over by a larger overseas financial institution and the embracing by the customers of internet and phone banking. It had been, before my eyes, a hub of social activity and a valued place in the delicate economic structure of that town. Something that a hole in the wall cash dispenser or a lap top screen internet banking page cannot ever hope to emulate.