A Penny for your Thoughts....

Pennywise...........

Yesterday, whilst shopping, I bent down and picked up a penny.   At nearly 80 years of age it was much easier bending down – it was the trying to stand back up that nearly got me.   All for the sake of a penny…………….

In the UK there are 100 pennies to the Pound, but back in the day, there used to be 240 to the Pound.   I have a very good reason why I bother to pick up a penny although I cannot think of anything that one can nowadays buy for such a small coin.   It was not always so, for I can well remember when I was a child one could buy a penny ice-cream, or a lollipop or even a pennyworth of sweets.

I have such a wonderful memory of a penny I used to ‘earn’ when I was about five years old.  It was just at the end of the Second World War and things were scarce.   Oddly enough, back home in Ireland although Tea, tobacco and many other such ‘luxuries’ were rationed but sugar based items never were.

On a Saturday morning, my mother (God rest her) would call me and tell me ‘It’s time to do your little job’.    I would then take the enamel bucket and start my rounds.   You see, all households did not throw away peelings and other food scraps but kept a container in which they were kept.

My ‘job’ – even at the age of five, was to go from door to door of our neighbours collecting their ‘slops’ as we called the waste.   I had about fifty houses to call at and after about twenty doors the bucket and its contents were not only heavy, but also rancid.   They stank of high heaven.

However, when I had completed my rounds, I then had to carry the bucket and contents across the road to Mrs. Rodgers.   She kept two pigs and several chickens.   I would present her with the bucket and she always told me to wait.   She would then make a show of examining the contents and although it made me nervous, she never said a word.   Instead, she would return to her kitchen and return presenting me with a shiny penny.   That was my ‘payment’.

I always ran back across the road to the local shop where I would purchase a pennyworth of sweets from Mrs. Regan.   It was then straight home where I would share the sweets with my mum.

As I type this little ditty, I can actually taste the toffee sweets and indeed smell the ‘slops’.

My little ‘job’ taught me a lot and I have never forgotten the value of money – not even a penny.    So I think you should now understand why I had the trouble bending down to pick up that penny yesterday.    To tell you the truth, I will continue to do so until I am 100.

--------Mike------