D-Day

My school meals were served on a cafeteria basis – and, unlike most of my school mates, I regarded them as a rather good selection of food. I had free school meals. For many, that might be seen as an extra bonus but like Animal Farm’s Benjamin, who had a tail to brush away the bothersome flies, I’d rather have not have been in the situation of needing free schools meals. However, I was on the up and by the seventies my free school meals were withdrawn and I was paying 1/10 every day – such a privilege.

Forty years ago today Britain went decimal. The last country in the world to do so and I could not wait. I was the first person in my school to buy lunch with the new money. I handed over nine freshly-minted new pennies. Gone were the days that we would have to do endless sums in pounds, shillings and pence – twelve pence to the shilling and twenty shillings to the pound.

Unfortunately, we still had ounces, pounds (sixteen ounces), stones (fourteen pounds), hundredweight (eight stones) and tons (twenty hundredweight) not to mention inches, feet (twelve inches), yards (three feet), chains (twenty-two yards), furlongs (ten chains) and miles (eight furlongs). But, with luck, I thought we could put those behind us too. It was not to be.

Although officially we are metric and have been for years, our road signs are still in imperial. The road signs offer the driver imperial distances but the signs themselves are designed and constructed in metric. Similarly cars are designed and constructed in metric but the drivers are offered imperial measurements for the speed and distance travelled. It is as if everyone else in the world can use metric but British drivers (along with American, Burmese and Liberian drivers).

I have asked a number of Secretaries of Transport why the roads can’t go metric and they all say the same thing. It costs too much. When I described ways of making the costs very low – far lower than the near billion they claim – they then say people do not want it. I know that, but people didn’t want to go decimal – remember that old woman in 1971 who said “why can’t they wait until the old people die off before they introduce decimal currency?” The fact is no one in their right mind would go back to pounds, shillings and pence. After a couple of years of using metric road signs people would wonder what the fuss was all about.

Many people confuse metrication with Brussels or the European Union. Just as, many centuries ago, our kings made sure that everyone used the same measures – today, within a global economy, we come together to decide on our international way of measuring – just like Greenwich Mean Time, the clock or the calendar. Each country at one time or another has bitten the bullet and adopted the international standard. Except us. Despite the fact that the international metric system was largely a British invention.

It was a Briton who first suggested a comprehensive measurement system using base ten. Most units of the metric system were invented or defined by the British. Many of the metric units are named after British people. Even the current reference kilogram was made in Britain.

Forty years after decimalisation let’s take the final step and bring the metric system home.