Fifty years since decimalisation

I was a boy when Britain changed over to decimal currency. It was fifty years ago today. 

Lots of nostalgia about it on the BBC Breakfast show, but their description misses out one of the best executed and most memorable parts of the public information programme - the "Decimal five" broadcasts from The Scaffold with some simple rules on how to use the new currency, set to music in ways designed to make them memorable. 

 And they worked too - I can still remember jingles like 
"One pound is a hundred new pennies, a hundred new pence to the pound" and 

"Use your old coppers in sixpenny lots" (because) "Sixpence is two and a half new pence."

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