Pocket money would make a good topic for another thread, but I'm too idle to begin it. So ...J.R. wrote:I don't recall having to 'pay' for films from my pocket-money. Maybe it was kept quiet in Coleridge B !!
In Col A, so far as I remember, Kit declared (to parents) an acceptable maximum and minimum for a term, and the parents sent the money to Kit. He kept an account book, and issued pocket money to boys on Saturday mornings. You could ask for whatever you wanted each Saturday, and he would hand it over, but when your account ran out then there was no credit, so you were poverty-stricken for the rest of the term unless you could persuade your parents to send some more - something that I never dared ask for. Also, Kit would deduct items like the film money, without giving you any choice.
We all learned very quickly to be miserly with our money, so that we might have some left over at the end of term, which Kit would return to us as a lump sum.
The amounts were small. When I started in 1954, I think I was allowed less than a pound a term.
If any friendly aunt or uncle sent you a postal order, you could cash it at the post office. I don't think Kit expected us to turn the money in to him.
All of which is a preamble to my reply to JR: if there was a similar system in ColB, then you might never realise that you had paid film money.