by escotregen » Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:13 pm
In early life one of the punishments inflicted on me for being a wee glasgow boy was to be took shopping in town by my mum/ an aunt/ a wummin that knew the family.
This usually involved visiting a big department store. These would be either Lewis’s, Dallass, Pettigrew’s, Arnott & Simpson or the likes. One of the things in those stores that both fascinated and worried me was the big tube arrangement for making payments and receiving change and receipts. Everything in those days was of course done by cash (unless you used a Provi check … there again my family thought themselves posh ‘cos they used Caledonian cheques).
Anyhows, what happened was your mum, aunt, whatever gave payment over to the shop worker who helped you and actually sold you the goods. The shop worker would pop your payment into a wee metal capsule thing and put that into a big tube. Then, the bit that worried me… when the capsule was lobbed into the tube there would be a WOOSH and it disappeared.
There would then be a pause and the shop worker and your mum, aunt, whatever, would make polite conversation like “My, did you see Frankie and Josie last night?” or the worer saying “He looks a nice quiet wee boy, why exactly is he doing that just now?”
Then there was another WOOSH and the shop worker would lift out the capsule, take out change and receipt and give it to your mum, aunt, whatever.
I never did find out what that tube system was and how it worked and why it was done that way… does anyone know? Or are there other strange things that happened in shops that you were taken to when you were young? (stories about 'incidents in toilets' are strictly not to be included!)