Life

Nuala McCann: If coronavirus crashes the system, cash in a cushion won't seem crazy

Cash is no longer king and I am slightly sad about that. I like cash, even if the slippery notes that they offer these days feel nothing like old fashioned filthy rotten lucre

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann is an Irish News columnist and writes a weekly radio review.

You never know the day nor the hour that the system crashes – now the mattress looks like a handy spot
You never know the day nor the hour that the system crashes – now the mattress looks like a handy spot You never know the day nor the hour that the system crashes – now the mattress looks like a handy spot

“MAY I borrow a cheque – as in, could you write one for me and I’ll give you cash,” asks an old friend.

“You do realise that chequebooks are virtually antiques,” I tell her.

She shrugs, as she is at the mercy of some kind of bureaucracy from the dark ages.

Somewhere in the back of a bunged drawer, I hoke and come up with my cheque book.

But it has been very many moons since I’ve written a cheque. In fact, even the new slippery bank notes in my pocket get rejected in favour of the cash card.

The true new cashless society hit me on that trip to London – nobody else in the Pret sandwich queue hunted for a purse. Nobody in the cinema queue did either and the underground meant a quick swipe with the card – once in and once out.

Cash is no longer king, I tell my other half. I am slightly sad about that. I like cash, even if the slippery notes that they offer these days feel nothing like old fashioned filthy rotten lucre.

I am old enough to remember before decimalisation and the joy of a 10 shilling note in a birthday card from my beloved godmother. I remember my six pence pocket money and the dash up to the shop after Friday night devotions for a quarter of midget gems and a Bazooka Joe.

Cash works for me. Money down the sofa works for me. Large jars of change lying around our house work for me too. Amazing what people pull out of their pockets and leave lying about that pays a bus fare and a pint of milk.

Yes, bus drivers have rolled their eyes at the coppers and muttered: “Out singing for your supper again?” but the laugh’s on me.

There’s a whole new generation of people who live by the hand swipe... apparently you can get married like that these days.

Money is a cause close to my heart because I don’t like it. My mother was a counsellor for many years and would shake her head wisely at the problems in marriage: “Forget the sex, it’s money and in-laws you need to watch,” she’d sigh.

I was chatting to old friends recently and confessed that I always have to have a large float in my current account just to feel safe. If I go even £1 below that certain amount, I start to feel very uncomfortable.

“Don’t you overdraw?” they laughed.

Overdraft is what happens in the airplane when you turn the little fan button on, I told them.

It is not that I’ve ever been in real need. Well, when I bought my flat and the interest rate rocketed to 15 per cent and then the rates bill arrived and nobody had ever explained the concept of rates... then yes, it was beans and cheap red wine and sleeping on the floor for a while.

But I’ve never had to deal with the horrors of PIP.

A friend say she knows a retired professor who feels the same sense of worry and believes it is in your genetic make-up.

People talk about hungry grass dating from Famine days – you walk over a patch and are clutched by a sudden deep gnawing hunger, a throwback to the past.

My financial advisor – thanks, Michael of this paper, I love being able to drop you into the conversation – has told me that I shouldn’t look so worried and I’ll not run out of money. I know it is true. But last week world markets plummeted and suddenly the graph of my pension that climbed up and up took a dive worthy of Tom Daley off a high board.

You have to be stoic.

And now, in the current mania about coronavirus, I’m wondering about what might happen. A whole generation are going about merrily swiping their cards through life like the foolish bridesmaids in the Bible who ran out of oil for their lamps.

You never know the day nor the hour that the system crashes – remember that disaster in Japan when the systems went down? And then where are you but standing with your hands in your pockets at a useless hole in the wall?

Now, I regret dissing grannies who keep their worldly wealth stuffed into the cushion; now my Ikea mattress looks like a handy spot.

Old ways are best and I’m keeping the cheque book.