The Most Cash I’ve Ever Seen
By Fleches Bleues at http://flechesbleues.wordpress.com/
It was the summer of 1991, or thereabouts. I was 11 going on 12 (ish).
I was staying with my dad for the weekend. Or the holidays. Or something. I was out and about and pootling around the local shops. Not quite so much fun on my own as with dad, as he was much less likely to buy me things or let me put out my hand and keep the change when the cashier proffered it (that was a great trick) (one which I continued to employ for many years) (in fact, I think my dad is still a little bit surprised every time I’m out with him and don’t do it, even now). But still. Maybe he’d given me some actual pocket money to spend on my own that day. Or I was just out for a walk. I can’t remember.
It is beginning to sound as though my dad was terribly irresponsible, letting such a young innocent thing as moi wander around unaccompanied. I’m sure that’s not actually true. Is 11 (ish) too young for that sort of thing? I don’t recall feeling terrified or abandoned or plagued by strangers with alluring bags of sweets. I’m fairly sure we’d been shopping together earlier, but that he had gone home before me and I had wanted to stay and do a bit more window-shopping, or something. Anyway, I survived to tell the tale and am (relatively) normal and well-balanced, so let’s stop worrying and move on.
What I do remember is that I was crossing the road outside Kwik Save, towards a lay-by near a small parade of shops including a greengrocers (I’m not really sure why that’s relevant) (and no, I cannot for the life of me think what I might have been doing on my own in Kwik Save. Maybe dad had asked me to get something. Or maybe I had been to the library, which was behind Kwik Save. Yes, that sounds much better. Anyway…).
As I approached the other side of the road, I saw something fluttering about near the kerb. When I got closer, I saw that it was money. Real, folding money! Just lying abandoned in the road, about to get run over/trodden on/blown into the gutter. So I did what any sensible person would do - I picked it up. All forty pounds of it.
Forty whole English pounds. FORTY! I remember this because a) this was the most money I had probably ever seen/been allowed to touch, and b) because there were just two notes, folded together, of differing dimensions and designs. This was because the Bank of England had just issued new £20 notes, but the old ones were still in circulation as well. In my hands that day I held one of each, folded nicely but misshapenly together.
Of course, then I had a dilemma. This money was not mine. Someone had obviously dropped it. But as there was no wallet on the ground, no ID, there was no way to find out who. I have a funny feeling I may have even asked the person crossing the road in front of me if it was theirs. But that is in no way verifiable and may be my imagination running away with me. I wouldn’t put it past me though.
What I do know is that, after consultation with my dad on the matter (running home and saying “Look, dad! What shall I do?” etc.), we decided that the best course of action was to go back into town and take it to the police station.
Oh yes. The first sign that I may very well be too honest for my own good came at a young age.
(The second - much more ridiculous - sign that I may very well be too honest for my own good came about a decade later, when I went to customer services in Sainsbury’s to ask them to check whether I had paid for the thing that I hadn’t heard beep through the till, even though the cashier had tried it about three times. I hadn’t. So I then paid for it. They thought I was crazy. So do I, now, but then I thought that I really wouldn’t have been able to eat it knowing I’d inadvertently become a shoplifter.)
Anyway, I digress (again).
So, we trundled off to the police station and filled in a lot of forms (where and when I had found the money, who I was and where I lived). I have a sneaking suspicion that the policeman thought we were a little bit barmy for handing in this “lost property”, but he hid it well. I was being an honest upstanding citizen, after all.
Four weeks later, after nobody had come forward to claim their two mismatching twenty-pound notes, I went back to the police station and they were legally and rightfully mine. All mine. I was very excited. Forty pounds is a lot of money when you are 11 (ish). It’s still rather a lot of money now, come to think of it.
So, I guess the moral of the story is… maybe honesty is the right policy after all.
(but not in Sainsbury’s, that was stupid)
April 13th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Kids are funny, ain’t they? When I was about 9, out shopping with my mum, I saw a woman drop £5. I picked it up, told my mum I would chase after her and return it, jumped and dived through all the shoppers’ legs, handed it over, saying “You dropped this,” and she just took it from me without even saying thank you. Bitch. Never again.