the change

KNUTSFORD counted its blessings when one of the first electronic calculators was exhibited in town.

Councillors marvelled at the quick sums of the metal machine - a bargain at £550.

But the benefits of the calculator really added up when the new decimal currency arrived weeks later.

Town traders were ready for decimalisation - dubbed D-Day - on Monday 15 February.

They'd spent months figuring out the new currency at special training schemes organised by Knutsford's Chamber of Trade.

When D-day finally arrived the change of change went reasonably smoothly with only six town centre tills not jingling with the new coins.

"Older people have not resented it but have taken the change-over with mixed feelings," one town centre store manager told the newspaper. "They need some time to get used to it but young people have taken it for granted." Some pensioners spent hours in shops trying to convert prices to the old currency to work out how much they were paying.

But public panic that Knutsford traders would secretly increase prices under the new system were proved wrong.

"Traders should know better than using decimalisation as an excuse to put up prices as some people have claimed," said chamber of trade president Clr Fred Atkinson.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.