Pre-App [The Branches]

All Images: Clifton, Bristol & West Leicester, August 2024

When I was very young, my dad worked for the National Provincial Bank. Colloquially, in our family at least, this was known as ‘The NP’. I had heard people on TV and the radio talk (with a deference which was probably more common back then) about people called ‘MPs’', and being too young to really make sense of the adult world - conflated the two things. I assumed they were talking about what my father did. Ironically, a bit later, the National Provincial merged (or was swallowed up by – I’m not sure which) with the Westminster Bank. That became what we came to know as The National Westminster Bank, then just National Westminster, and which - following a common enough reductive path, we still recognise as Nat West. Big fish will always consume smaller fish, and Nat West itself was eventually absorbed into the Royal Bank of Scotland group (necessitating effective nationalisation for a while after the global financial crisis of 2008). My dad was regrettably long-gone by then, would probably have been bemused by much of it,  and certainly never had any political ambitions that I’m aware of.

In a very real way, I guess I am a product of that world of provincial, branch-based banking. My mother had also started her working life at the National Provincial, and my parents met at her workplace, in the busy fishing port that was her hometown. Her memories of that time included being regularly delegated to administer a satellite operation at the docks, handling large amounts of currency as cash deals were struck over freshly landed catches, and returning with boxes of complementary haddock to share amongst her co-workers. That particular trade is now massively diminished of course, and what remains was long industrialised beyond any such folk-memory. In the intervening years, the old docks became a fascinating, near-derelict zone of lost time, still vaguely ‘perfumed’ by the countless generations of North Sea fish that once passed through it. In some respects, the abandoned, boarded-up buildings that lingered there prefigured the ever-multiplying ranks of vacant bank premises, themselves now awaiting erasure or new occupancy on every high street.

Back in the day, career progression in domestic banking often involved relocating to a new branch with each new promotion. Consequently, we settled in a new (to us - it's actually pretty ancient) town when I was around 5 years old. However, my dad was lucky enough to take one or two more steps up without another move, and so that’s where I did all my real growing-up. Originally, his new branch was in a spectacular timber-framed building built in the mid-sixteenth century. I remember visiting his workplace and being very impressed by the crazy angles of heavy oak beams, and by the fact that the floor seemed to undulate beneath the feet as one crossed the room. I doubt there was a true right-angle in the whole edifice, and it’s possible the mundane world of local banking acquired an unwarranted historical glamour in my mind through being located there. 

The business later transferred to new, purpose-built premises nearby – occupying a bland Modernist insertion into a much older side street. I remember my father recounting the various teething-problems that arose as the new facilities bedded-in, not least the tendency for the alarm system to be triggered with the least provocation. As a key-holder, he was often the first to be called by the police if that occurred out of hours (as was generally the case), and I accompanied him on more than one of these exciting callouts. What seems really astounding now is that, rather than waiting in the car, I would go into the premises with my dad, another of his colleagues, and at least two coppers – all unable to know exactly who or what might be waiting inside. I even remember peering into the strongroom as the incredibly thick steel hatch was opened to ensure no one was hiding inside (much like something from a TV or film thriller). Of course, memory will inevitably romanticise the past, and perhaps everyone else knew it was just another inconvenient false alarm all along - despite having to observe the formalities. Nevertheless, it still seems incredible such things might have happened when the demands of Safeguarding and Health & Safety inescapably came to underpin every aspect of my own day-job.

Nowadays, as local bank branches rapidly disappear, we are naturally brought to the realisation that money was only ever really symbolic anyway. The gradual move away from physicality (bags of coins, the smell of rapidly thumbed notes, the iron clang of the night safe, etc.) began a long time ago but has accelerated exponentially as many aspects of our everyday lives migrate to the digital realm. Back in the 1970s, when ‘cash cards’ first appeared (long before they became the multi-functional debit cards many now increasingly find quaint), bank employees were amongst the first to trial their efficacy. I remember making a special family trip to the sole cashpoint machine in town, to try out my Dad’s new card. We watched as printed instructions spun round on a fabric belt (!), then waited in trepidation - hardly daring to believe the requested notes would actually be spat out. Nowadays - it seems, bricked-up or otherwise barricaded apertures are all that remains of many such terminals - even if some remain to indulge such folk as still value the reassurance of a few notes in the wallet.

As with my previous post, I should emphasise this really isn’t intended as an exercise in self-indulgent nostalgia or in bemoaning the inevitable (and generally mesmerising) processes of change. In fact, it’s always interesting to chart just how many technologies or trades may come and go within the span of one human life (a number that can only rise exponentially, I assume). As the app and the algorithm replace the cash desk and the card slot, I am mostly prompted to reflect on the ways that frictionless virtual narratives and information streams (and the transactions they enfold) are just as intrinsic to the life of the city as the physical features that constitute its fabric. That the clues to all this become ingrained within that very fabric is just a bonus for those, like me, who never tire of investigating our surroundings and seeking the signs.