Half Crowns in their Petticoats: Reloaded

Track 1. 10 Foot Tall - John Ordish (2013)

"I look back on my time in broad street as a life-learning experience, there were wonderful people here. Whenever you entered the building, you felt ten foot tall. It was a magnificent building with mostly marvellous people who you learnt a lot about life from. And I feel very privileged to have experienced that."

Track 2. A line of Red Telephone Boxes - Lesley Coley (2025)

"I started work in the Head Office on Broad Street on the first of September 1970, which happened to be a bank holiday Tuesday. I came, here, and of course being enthusiastic, I was a bit early. And at that time over the road in the square opposite there was a whole line of red telephones boxes and to kill some time I went into a red telephone box and rang my mother just to kill some time."

Track 3. Birmingham Civic Society - Stephen Aston (2025)

“One of the things that makes me proud about the refurbishment project that we’ve done is the care that we took of the building because it is apart of the city’s heritage and we at the university are only custodians of the building for the city and for the people of the city. So when Birmingham Civic Society gave us an award for the care that we have taken with the refurbishment that was really an affirmation that we’ve done our job properly.”

Track 4. Cash in a Suitcase - Ray & Margaret Stanley (2013)

“How we met my wife and I, Margaret, was at Aston cross branch. I went there on relief the assistant manager had gone elsewhere because another manager was ill and I was there you know, a few days I’d say. And when the cash stock was high, we used to pass it to other banks and we walked it down in a case. Always two people, I don’t know what… whether they thought Margaret could defend me or the money or not, but we did it. But of course, we did a bit of courting on the way, and we weren’t too quick coming back. And that’s how it started, and we’ve been married fifty-three years.”

Track 5. Clever Blokes - Tom Murphy (2013)

“There was a lot of clever blokes that worked for the banks and a lot of people, a lot of people who were, I think, very very adaptable, flexible and definitely very very loyal to the bank and worked very hard. Didn’t you really? We had lots of people like that there wasn’t just a few. There was a very good culture of work and loyalty, and the social side was excellent, very good.”

Track 6. Credit Cards - John Ordish (2013)

“I remember when, what were they, credits cards came out. And we used to have to go and there was a team and an office that printed all these cards up at Five Ways, and Denny Corner was working in there and he went to collect them one day and as he came out while he was opening his car he put all the credit card in a box on the top of his car. Anyway the wind blew and blew them all over the place. With people’s names on, credit cards the lot, he was gone, he was gone for hours collecting all these things up off the road. You know experiences like that.”

Track 7. Front Door - David & Jeanette Parkes (2013)

“When it was closing time, someone had to stand on the door to stop them going in. It was no good the outgoing customers to shut the door behind them because other people would just force their way in”

“yeah”

“You’d have to … y’know, someone would have to stand there and say sorry were closed.”

“I mean they don’t know what busy is now in these banks.”

Track 8. The frustrated Spinster - Ray & Margaret Stanley (2013)

“We used to go to night school together, didn’t we?”

“Yes, we did”

“Yes, and the manager, because before…. before I’d got to the branch there was another girl there. And there was this frustrated spinster at the branch and this girl got engaged and this spinster said, ‘oh more fool her’. And so, when Ray started to go out with me I thought ‘I can’t tell her that I’m going out with ray!’ So he used to phone me up at lunchtime and I used to go and answer the phone, and they used to say, ‘who was that?’ and I’d say ‘oh, it’s only Ray’, ‘what did he want?’ ‘He wanted to know what books it was for night school this week.’ I kept telling her this and then one day the manager came dashing down to listen I to who I was talking to and of course.”

“They thought you were a spy.””

“It was all out then.”

“Yeah, those were the days.”

Track 9. They repaired the shrapnel damage - David Parkes (2025)

“Another particular example is that in refurbishing the building they repaired the shrapnel damage caused by bombs in the Second World War which I felt was part of the history of the bank as being obliterated. So I did campaign for that not to be done but it failed”.

Track 10. We didn’t have our own cars - Resham Sahota (2025)

“We took the jewellery out that we wanted to wear. Opposite used to be a lot of greenery, you could have your family photos, your wedding photos there. We wore all the jewellery that we wanted to, and as we were going home, we put it back so we knew it was back into the branch again. You couldn’t carry it home. But every time you wanted to carry it home you had to be careful. We didn’t have our own cars, we were going on the buses, we were walking up to the bus stop and you had to be careful what you took out. But I did visit it every time I wanted to go, attend weddings or teas or whenever I wanted to wear the big jewellery.”

Track 11. Your home, your city, your bank - Christine Flaherty (2025)

“I think people trusted them Birmingham banks because it was Birmingham municipal. Birmingham their city, the Birmingham bank. It was your home, your city, your bank.”

Track 1. A place that we can open up - Stephen Aston (2025)

“There were lots of original features in the building that talked about the importance of the city, the importance of saving that we wanted to keep. So there were inscriptions in the banking hall, ‘thrift radiates happiness ’. There are stained glass windows in the entrance hall talking about the different characteristics that the city fathers wanted to encourage in the population. And of course one of the things we wanted to do was to open up the vaults and let people see that space that was always close off a little bit, but is a place we can open up and let members of the public come.”

Track 2. Aura - Chris Bocott (2013)

“Yeah, it’s a lovely, lovely place to work. The atmosphere was always good, it was always calming, the place was always calm and quiet and had an aura about it. It wasn’t like one of the banks I’d worked at before where it was all kind of harum-scarum where everyone was rushing around like idiots. There was always a calm presence in this place we had people just going about the work, but it was always kind of a nice atmosphere to work within.”

Track 3. Before the Welfare State - David Parkes (2025)

“Saving banks themselves have grown up before the Welfare State really, so people had to put some money aside to cover illness, losing their job, and the major things that worried people was funeral expenses so they would join friendly societies and then those who always a bit compresence things. So a chap called Henry Donnachie had his savings bank in Scotland, and then that sort of spread, and Birmingham had a savings bank called the Birmingham Savings Bank in the 19^th Century. But after those savings bank were very small, a lot of them were very poorly run, quite a bit of fraud. Quite often the local dignities would run it and they’d probably get someone to actually do the banking themselves, might be the victor or something. So the government brough in various measures, acts to try to cope with that. And the one in the 1860s, I think, the Birmingham trustees said that’s too ‘honourous’, we are not going to that liability on. So they closed it down and encouraged people to transfer their money to the post office. So come the First World War when again they are encouraging savings for the war effort, was when Neville Chamberlain came up with the idea that Birmingham has got to have a savings bank, and that was the BMB.”

Track 4. Front of House Back of House dichotomy - Stephen Ashton (2025)

“When we were working out what parts of the building needed to be conserved and which parts we weren’t going to, we looked at the front of house, back of house dichotomy that you have in a bank. As a building, a bank is fundamentally different to what we’ve got now. So a bank functions a little bit like a temple, you go into a sequence of different spaces until you get to that central place, but we wanted to open it up, we want a building that encourages members of the public, other people to come into the space and engage with the work at the university. A little bit more like a shopping mart, where you can come in from a couple different directions now and it’s far more free flowing. So the back of the building as it was, we try not to called it front and back now actually, but the back of the building as it was, was constructed cheaply, it was never supposed to be seen so we took that element off and were able to put a modern reinterpretation of the opposite side of the building. So the south entrance is completely new, but you can see the echoes to the original north entrance to the building.”

Track 5. Holiday Clothes - Christine Flaherty (2025)

“On the Friday, the Friday before all the factories broke up, they all broke up for the same fortnight every year, and I remember my mum always would meet me, with my nan, in the bank, get some money out and go next door and buy my holiday clothes, I’d remember as that as well.”

Track 6. People in Uniform - Resham Sahota (2025)

“You expected people in uniform. You expected people in the offices, to be officers, to be cashiers, not the chit chat that we have now. You’re probably thinking I am a bit old fashioned, but that’s how it was. You’d done your transaction, you were spoke to politely, you spoken to them with respect, they’d done the transactions, they’d even signed at the end of the line to say which cashier had actually taken your money so you’d knew them, but there wasn’t anything like ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ and this and that, a part from ‘thank you very much’ and ‘thank you for the service’.”

Track 7. Project Bargepole - Stephen Ashton (2025)

“I have a fear to this project, as Project Bargepole, because I didn’t want to touch it with a bargepole because it was problematic, it was raining inside, there was asbestos, it was going to be challenging from a conservation point of view. My then manager called me in one day and sat me down and said ‘Stephen, we would like you to lead on the project at the Municipal Bank, what do you think?’ And I said ‘are you sure you haven’t got something else?’ He said, ‘well, do you like your job here at the university?’ so I said ‘yes I do, I’ll work on this project.’ Having got over that hurdle, I then started exploring the challenges that the project was facing, and the site manager that had already started by that point and lead the project all the way through from a construction point of view, was based here in an office, I think it was a floor below at this point and he had got a book that was the programme for the opening of the bank. It was one of the original programmes, and it was leafing through that, the penny started to drop to just how important this building was in the history of the city. A city that I’d grown up in, a city that I’d enjoyed living in, and so it kind of grew from there.”

Track 8. Revolving Doors - David Parkes (2013)

“But he didn’t get it all right. The door was one of the things he got wrong. That revolving door wasn’t here when the building first opened. And apparently not long after there was a very strong gale force storm that resulted in the doors being blown open and the documents flying everywhere for two or three days.”

Track 9. School Desks - Mary Jones (2013)

“I remember when we started we had to go to the school room upstairs, one of the rooms off the corridor upstairs, for a week’s training before we started work. And that was taken by the inspectors that used to do the teaching on there’s, there used to be about twelve of us at a time in the rooms, sitting at the desks like you were at school again.”

Track 10. Wide Counters - David Parkes (2013)

“These days we all know about the need for security and there was none as such for the staff for many, many years. The only security really, basically was the width of the counter which was considerable. So, it would be impossible for anyone to lean across, grab anything because it was such a wide counter.”

Track 11. Women couldn’t get a mortgage - Christian Flaherty (2025)

“I do remember going to the bank when my husband and I got mortgage, mum and dad took me to the bank, but like I said they gave me the deposit for a house, the only problem was you couldn’t have a mortgage until you were 21, a women couldn’t have a mortgage until she was 21. So of course it was a trust that my husband wouldn’t leave me, because the mortgage was all in his name until I reached 21 then we were able to put my name on it, so yeah we have come a long way since then. Even when I worked for the Building Society when I was 19, I still couldn’t have my name on the mortgage. And also men would get a very good interest rate offered to them, but the women wouldn’t, women wouldn’t get the interest rate only the men. And that would have been 1965, 66, 67.”

Track 1. Blonde Hair - Rob Wilden (2013)

“I was 17 years old, gone to a boy’s grammar schools and I went to work in the accounts department and one of the things I had to do every day was take certain information around the building, and downstairs was the current accounts department. Birmingham Municipal Back only did check accounts in 1968. I went down there, and it was three guys and about fifty girls, all in mini skits and you would walk in and just be petrified because all these girls would look you up and down and go, ‘we don’t see many men so let’s have a look at him!’ ‘And he’s 17 and he’s got blonde hair!’ And so, you didn’t know where to put yourself, all you know was you were just doing what you were doing and then getting the hell out because of the fact it was quite imposing. But good fun.”

Track 2. Enquiry Bell - Lesley Coley (2025)

“I actually learnt a lot of my craft on the enquires desk, up until you were 18 you couldn’t handle the money, so if it was busy and the enquiry bell went it was me who answered the enquiry bell.”

Track 3. Half Crowns in their Petticoats - David Parkes (2013)

“Reflecting back on when the bank first started, it was such a gracious hall as this was, magnificent, of course the glass in those days that do impress people to give the impression in something you see for financial strength. Of course the whole of the bank really built upon small deposits, before the bank came to exist in 1919 there was no savings bank as such in Birmingham so there was a need for it. And when the bank for opened there were offices expanding through the city. We’ve found a lot of people been giving their savings. Which, prior to that they were either kept underneath the floorboards, somebody apparently came in with a tin, a big huge tin full of half crowns. And it was often common for ladies to come in and had to go discreetly in the corner of the building to remove from their petticoats the half crowns etcetera which was the family’s savings. So to keep it safe, obviously, they used to walk round with it in their petticoats with probably quite large sums of money. I think they probably have very luminous skirts and so in those days.”

Track 4. It’s lovely to sit up there and have a coffee - Jeanette and David Parkes (2025)

“It’s lovely to sit up there and have a coffee and see how busy it is, and how wonderful its surroundings are. Whereas when no one was doing anything, it was a sad place.

“Yeah”

“We came when it was at its saddest, when it was all run down so now to see it as a coffee shop, it is amazing.”

“Yes because when we did those interviews last time, it was in March and it was freezing.”

“Yes”

“Do you remember how cold it was and we were standing in the middle of that big hall, everyone wrapped up in coats”

“Yes that’s right in the photograph everyone’s got coats on.”

“Yeah huge coats.”

Track 5.  Joan Collins - Christine Carroll (2025)

“A TV used to be behind here, and a lot of the celebrities would come in and draw money out. Martin Shaw came in once who I’d adored and he just came straight to the till and I was like ‘oh hello!’ But Joan Collins wanted the banking hall cleared, so we had to clear the banking hall and she came to the, there was a till at the side, and she came to that till and she cashed a check. And I asked her for her bank card to write the details on the back of the check cause it was more than the £30 limit, and she had a right go at me. ‘Don’t you trust me?’ I was like well I am just following procedure, we need your bank card details. She got a bit stroppy.”

Track 6.  Nowhere to run that cable- Stephen Ashton (2025)

“The building did present challenges from an accessibility point of view, our accessibility officer at the university was constantly talking about the narrow pairs of double doors which are a real feature of the building, they’re all beautiful but a nightmare to get through with a wheelchair because you have to open both sides of the door to let the wheelchair through. The normal way of solving that problem would be to power open them, but getting an electrical supply just to a set of doors in some cases sounds trivial, but was actually really really challenging when all of the wall services are marble and you’ve got nowhere to run that cable.”

Track 7. Polished Furniture - Christine Flaherty (2025)

“I used to love to go to the bank as polished furniture, being tiny I used to try and look over the top when they empty the box and watch all the money fall on the counter. My gran would lift me up, it just felt like paradise, the marble walls and everything. So I used to love to go to the bank and she used to say ‘not until it’s full’, then I would try to put a lot more into to go to the bank.”

Track 8. So much filing - Lesley Coley (2025)

“I’ve never in my life seen so much filing and that was my job for the first week, because it was after a bank holiday and in those days people used a lot of checks, they were all coming through to be cashed. There were loads of card, one for each customer, but that wasn’t the only filing because in those days all the checks were given back to the customers with their statements. We had to file all the checks into these cabinets so they could go back with statements at this time. I didn’t like it very much.”

Track 9.  Raised Platform - Lynne Wright (2013)

“There was a raised platform just under the clock and the manager and the assistant manager used to sit in there. And it was quite a raised area and there was glass panelling all the way round, and they used to be looking down on us all the time, there was always someone in that box.”

Track 10. The Pen / Continuous Buzz - David Parkes (2013)

“A dictograph system was installed. It was called the pen at the back of the banking hall and each of the offices could buzz each other with this system. But if the general manager or the deputy general manager buzzed you it wasn’t just a buzz it was a continuous buzz and didn’t stop until you answered it. So, if there was nobody in there, there would be a rush of people preferably saying, ‘after you’ because it would be the general manager probably ringing down to say ‘what the hell have you been doing?’”

Track 11. The look and feel of the banking desk - Stephan Ashton (2025)

“So a good example of how we refurbished the building to reflect how the building had been used in the past as in the banking hall, so you go into the banking hall now there’s two different floor types. There’s a terrazzo on the public side of the, where the bank desk used to be and there’s a timber floor on the staff side where the bank desk used to be. We’ve created a café counter in there, we didn’t need the café counter to be as big as the banking desk, and thankfully we also wanted to get some additional covers into the space, so we made a smaller café counter than the banking desk, but we did try and pick up on the look and feel of the banking desk when we designed that café counter.”

Track 12. We used to go clubbing after that - Christine Carroll (2025)

“We’d often go out on a Thursday night, but one night every month we had all the country and bank notes come in from all the branches so once we’d shut at 7 o’clock we had to balance all that money, and there could be a million pounds then, it was all on the desk in the middle. And some of it was vile, and you had to sort it all out and balance it and it balanced. So we’d be here until 11, 12 o’clock at night, so we used to go clubbing after that so that was good fun. And then we’d just come back to work the next morning, we didn’t go home.”

Track 1. 40 years to realise that - Christine Carroll (2025)

“I don’t think anyone appreciated what this building was. We were terrified of the balcony because the general manager would appear, so we didn’t see the balcony as something lovely, it was ‘on the doors are opening, he is going to be looking down.’ But when I moved to Alfred Tower, I suddenly realised how lovely this place was, but I think when you are young you don’t necessarily take on the architecture of a building, you just accept it. And it’s only now where I’ve been coming back and it’s a café and I’ve gone ‘oh isn’t it stunning it’s really beautiful, but it’s taken me like 40 years to realise that.”

Track 2. A solid wall - Lesley Coley (2025)

“They put me to work in the current accounts department at the back of banking hall, where today there’s a nice glass wall looking out. In those days it was a solid wall, there were no windows or anything in that part of the building. I did find that a bit daunting because I came from a school which was very light and airy.”

Track 3. Light flooding in - Stephen Ashton (2025)

“So the first time I came to this building, it was when one of my colleagues, the project manager who had been running the project before me brought me to show me around the building. So we couldn’t come in the front door because that was sealed off from a security point of view, so we came in a tiny little back door into a dark building, the light switch wasn’t anywhere near the door so we were tapping on the walls trying to find it. Even when we got into the banking hall, again, it was pitch black and we had to hunt around before we could find somewhere of getting the lights on to see the space. So one of the best things, one of the best times in the project was when we dropped the scaffolding that had been inside the banking hall and you could see the light pouring in from the new roof light and see out both the north and the south entrances, and a building that had been so dark and so enclosed was allowing the daylight back into it and it was lovely.”

Track 4. No mingling in - Resham Sahota (2025)

“All of the banks have improved a lot you can see, but I’m still looking at it from my personal point of view, how I perceived it as I was growing up. The authority of the cashiers, the respect that you’d have for each other, and no mingling in and it was all like, you go in, do your transaction, say your hello, say your goodbye and that’s it. And that’s how it should be kept I think.”

Track 5. Refurbishment - Stephen Ashton (2025)

“When we refurbished the building, we added the café where the banking hall was, we refurbished the staff offices to provide office and events spaces, and in the new extension to the south we took the opportunity of the big glazed facade to have mingling spaces where people can enjoy refreshments as they break out of the events that are taking place in the building.”

Track 1. Bannisters - Margaret Stanley (2013)

“Yes, I mean there were only what, about 16, 18? Something like that, 20? And you see as I came down I still... I was coming up, and I said, ‘What’s it all bout Alfie!’ And just then the assistant general manager comes through the door, and he looks up and he can see me swinging round the banisters but…”

“And then what? Did you stop or did you carry on?”

“I would stop if he was coming”

“Do you remember how the rest of that song went?”

“No. ‘What’s it all about Alfie…’ ah no I can’t remember the other bit”

Track 2. Captured The Feel of How The Building Was Then – Stephen Ashton (2025)

“The original photographs taken before the opening, produced in preparation for the opening to provide that background for when Prince George came and opened the building for the first time so we didn’t have photographs of the opening but photographs of the building taken for the opening. The photographs that we saw in that programme were influential because we could see the parts that were important at that time and we wanted to make sure that if you put a camera in the same place, you’d be able to tell that it was the same place and it still captured the feel of how the building was then.”

Track 3. Column of Figures - John Ordish (2013)

“Alright, my name is John Ordish. I joined the bank in the autumn of 1958, and I clear remember my visit here to try and convince them I was worth employing involved me meeting with the assistant general manager in a small rooms who gave me a large column of figures to add up. Whether it was nerves or what I don’t know but I made a … a right hash of it. And at the end of it he said, ‘Well I don’t know what were going to do with you, you’ve failed on this.’ And he then said, which surprised me a bit, he said ‘what sports do you play?’

And I said, ‘I play a lot of cricket.’

‘You play cricket, do you? Okay well we’ll take you on then.’ Which amazed me somewhat, but I never regretted that, it was my lucky day I suppose.”

Track 4. Long-legged Jenny Gilbert - David Parkes (2013)

“Do you remember that Jenny Gilbert, was the name Jenny Gilbert, who used to work with Paula?”

“No I don’t, I don’t remember Jenny Gilbert”

“Well, she had long legs.”

“Did she?”

“I’m surprised he married me in the end!”

“Oh, this was much later. And I do remember once passing her on the stairs between the second floor and the canteen. And she was going up and I was going down and as I got to the half landing at the bottom, because I turned round to look up, and she looked down at me and says, ‘what are you looking at?’

“Serves you right!”

“Yeah, it does”

Track 5. Saving for the future not just for today - Christine Flaherty (2025)

“I do remember the money box, nan used to use it as a door stopper. She also used to polish it, it was always pristine as clean as the door step actually. So, yes, every time I had pocket money some would go in the box, and some I could spend so she had a big influence, she was very much one for saving for the future not just for today so, yes, that sort of formed my life and my children’s because we’ve always thought don’t borrow, save.”

Track 1. 1 Carat was about £3.50 - Resham Sahota (2025) 

“All the background work was done by the women, looking after children, looking after the home, saving money where they can and remember they didn’t go to the hairdressers, they didn’t wear anything fashionable. A part from having Indian jewellery, that was their investment, having jewellery even more than saving in the bank because jewellery always goes up in price. 1 carat was about £3.50 in the mid-60s, early-70s, now you’re talking about £800, £900 per carat so you can see the big difference, the big divide how much gold has actually gone up in price, and so what the women were told that to save a little bit of money that they can and invest it in gold.”

Track 2. A very important part of this building - Lesley Coley (2025)

“The safe deposit boxes were a very important part of this building. There is also a corridor that runs round the back of the safe deposit boxes and in one of my jobs I was over the foreign currency department, they kept their foreign currency in one of the safes at the back so I was in here. Also I had a safe deposit box, number 907 I think, because once we bought our house we were told that you shouldn’t keep your deeds in the house in case the house burnt down, how did you prove that you’d actually owned it. So I had a safe deposit box there. You would come down into safe deposit, somebody would find your signature and you would sign a slip, they would take you to your box. There were two locks, they would unlock their lock, then they would leave you to unlock your lock and then you could get into your safe deposit box. There was also secret shelves that you pulled out so you could put your things on there and then if you’d wished they were private rooms where you could take your articles into to look at and then you’d just put your things back in and locked your key and that was it. Nobody ever knew what was in the safe deposit boxes. We think from when they had to empty them all, there was lots of jewellery in there, lots of gold jewellery, there were some firearms we believe in the safe deposit boxes. We can’t name them but the actual safe deposit was used in one or two films, if you know there was a bank scene, they would come and use our safety deposit boxes. A lovely place.”

Track 3. Bag lady - Christine Carroll (2025)

“We had one lady who, she was what we call bag lady. She’d lived under the bridge somewhere. Every time the notes changed so the old domination was called in, she’d come in with her trolley and she’d go down into the safe deposit she’d get hundreds of thousands of pounds out, most probably not that much but it felt like it. She’d bring it up to the tills, we had to swap it for all new dominations and then she put it back down in the safe. So she must of died a very poor, I don’t know if anybody actually knew that money was in the safe deposit. It’s quite sad really.”

Track 4. Favourite part of the building - Stephen Ashton (2025)

“I think my favourite space in the building is where the night safe chute comes down into a safe down into the basement. It’s hidden behind a non-descript door, it’s the original night safe. It’s one of the safes that we still have to open so there’s still a potential surprise there.”

Track 5. Fox stoles- Christine Carroll (2025)

“There is a story about fur coats being stored there.”

“Yes we saw some fur coast coming out, and stoles, like fox stoles and everything, they kept some wonderful things down there.”

Track 6. Glass eyes - Gill Price (2013)

“The most unusual thing I remember, it was when boxes weren’t visited and you know they would become …. And we would have to drill the boxes open. And we discovered one of the larger boxes full of glass eyes.”

“Beautifully kept.”

“Were they matching pairs?”

“No there was just one of different types. There was another man that came everyday just to change his watch.”

Track 7. Guns and hoards of cash - Lynne Wright (2013)

“There was all these safe deposits, I think there were four different sizes. And you paid on a yearly rate for them. And we had one key and the customer had the other key, and you needed both keys to open a box. And it was always very interesting the things people used to have in the boxes. And I think it was after ten years, if nobody had opened… had been to the box then the bank actually had the right to open these boxes and find out what was in them, and sometimes it was quite scary what they found. You know there was guns, on different occasions there was guns and hoards of money, that was probably got from ill-gotten gains. And one of us had to sit with the police or Mr Hannon so that everything was recorded that come out of these boxes. So that was quite interesting. I did enjoy the time down there.”

Track 8. Iron gates - Lynne Wright (2013)

“See where the join is in the carpet there used to be a great big iron gate, that end. And also, that end. So that’s where you were locked in, and you know once you were in you were in there was no going out unless someone let you out. For two hours and then you had to go up and have some fresh air. But these were all little rooms that if you wanted to take your box to be private you could go into a little room and just go through whatever you wanted, take your deeds out or whatever you needed to take out. You could have a little private room instead of doing it where there was lots of people”

Track 9. Quite daunting to be honest - Resham Sahota (2025)

“As women were growing up, money was coming in more and more into the household. They’d buy a little ring here, and a necklace here, and a pair of earrings and a bracelet here and there, whatever they could afford. So you didn’t want to kept all that gold at home, especially with the burglaries and we didn’t have, well a security system that we have got now so I enquired where we can put our gold and I was told by Lloyds that there’s a branch, this branch here and that you could go in there and when the children were at school I thought I’d pop in and see what its like and it was quite daunting to be honest as, because it was so posh that you were too scared to come in, so I came in, I had a look and I asked the man and he asked how much we roughly want to put, then they’d just show you the size of the containers. You knew people’s gold was there so it’s worth millions and millions of pounds, it was quite exciting to see how you could store your jewellery and you know it’s safe, you can come in between the banking time. On Thursdays it used to be open until 7 o’clock, if I couldn’t make it in the day, I’d just come in on the late Thursday night if we’d had to take out gold or put back the gold that we had taken out for weddings and parties and for whatever.”

Track 10. The most beautiful jewellery - Christine Carroll (2025)

“Customers would come into the branch and they’d have an appointment to go down into the safe deposit. Occasionally I was allowed to go down with them, so you would escort them down, they’d have their key and Mr Munk would have a key and he would open the box and they would be able to have a look and see what was inside. My husband was a solicitor and he had a lady who died and she got a safe deposit box. So I was allowed to go down with my husband and open the safe deposit box, we couldn’t lift it, it was so heavy. They’re not, they are long but they’re not very big and it was full of coins and she’d owned a shop, she was a green grocer and every night she’d gone through the change and fished out all the coins pre-1947 because they had got silver in them. We managed to fill about three briefcases with all the money, and Richard had to lug it over to Temple Row, where he worked and they sorted through and it was worth a small fortunate so that went into her estate. We had the police come and raid it, there were rifles and everything down there. And the jewellery, certainly the Indian jewellery was stunning, absolutely beautiful. So the ladies would come in get their jewellery out, put it on, go home and come back the next day and bring it back in. It was some of the most beautiful jewellery I’ve ever seen. It was a very popular facility. The customers had to pay by standing order, and if the standing order wasn’t paid, they would lose the right to that safe deposit and it would be reassigned but it was a very popular service that the bank offered.”

Track 1. Curtains - Chris Bocott (2013)

“When I worked here it was kind of a very mystique place if that’s the right word to put it, and the rumour have it that there were actually ghosts within this building and the first floor especially. Security guard used to tell me that when he used to draw the curtain at nighttime, he used to come the next morning, the curtains were actually drawn back and this happened, not every day of course, but it happened quite regular. He was always quite at pains to tell me that this as happening as if it was some phenomenon, so yeah that was good fun.”

Track 2. Juliet Balcony - Christine Carroll (2025)

“There’s a Juliet Balcony that looked down onto the banking hall, and the two managers that I remember Mr Agar and Mr Hockam, they’d just appear and there would be like this figure standing there, glaring at you and everybody would start working really really hard.”

Track 3. Sherry and Nibbles - Lynn Wright and Mary Jones (2013)

“If anybody left we’d always have sherry.”

“Yes, yes we did.”

“And we’d congregate in the machine room, and we’d have sherry and nibbles. And at Christmas we used to a…”

“A party yes.”

“…thing saving upstairs in the dining room. And all the departments came in didn’t they?”

“That’s right,”

“…and one year we had a pantomime.”

“D’you know Eileen I was just thinking that about the pantomime. Did we have? Oh, I wish we had that recorded!”

“Yeah,”

“I think, didn’t you do all the script for it. you did, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, and we did the Cinderella pantomime, it was the only one that was ever done.”

“Who did we do it for?”

“Just the staff!”

“And even the management, the manager! They were so impressed by it.”

“We did have some fun.”

“We had real fun, we did. Maybe that why people have stayed in touch so much.”

Track 4. The Morgue / Prettiest Girls - David Parkes (2013)

“In the accounts department, when I first started, was staffed really, by very elderly members of staff. Quite a lot of old ladies. It had the nickname of being called the morgue because it was so deathly quiet in there with the clerks sitting there writing away the figures and that. The noise level was just zero. But right after I went in and later Jill and Pat and one or two others came in, much younger staff. So, it became much more friendly, interesting place to work, with more noise and banter and laughter and so on. And gradually the age, average age got lower and generally it was mostly girls. And I always found that the ladies were better workers than the lads really. They were more interested in getting on with the job and doing a proper job, and getting off promptly to feed their husbands their tea than they were like lads who would just want to show off or…”

“Or talk football.”

“Or talk football or whatever you know. Less inclined to get on with the work really. So subsequently, after that I always tended to employ ladies”

“Positives for a relationship”

“And the accounts department was known for having the prettiest girls on the bank.”

“Who were they?”

“The accounts department.”

“And you were hiring them?”

“Well, I helped to veto some of them yes.”

Track 5. Virtual Tour - Stephen Ashton (2025)

“While we were refurbishing the building, the COVID pandemic started and unlike a lot of industries the construction industry was able to carry on going. So we did have a lot of restrictions in place. We only brought the particular operatives that we needed to actually onto site, and a lot of the planning work and a lot of the supervision work was done remotely. So I spent three months not able to come to this building, but I still got a weekly site tour of the building because we took the system a little bit like google street view, and mapped the building every week so I could then put on a pair of virtual goggles and do a virtual tour of the building. So when I came back after, three months, it was actually a little bit of a let down because all the progress that I was expecting to see, I had already seen it.”

Track 1. An Unexpected Discovery - Stephen Ashton (2025)

“There was an unexpected discovery in the room in which we’re sat. To prepare for the refurbishment of the building we had done a whole series of surveys, we’d looked through all the nasties so we could remove them, we’d done a condition survey of the fabric to make sure we could repair and address any issues caused by water ingress into the building, and we had been on site for two years, we torn the building apart and I brought someone round the building who was here quite a lot before we started the refurbishment. And we walked into this room and she said to me, ‘is the safe still here?’ and I said, ‘what safe?’ and she walked up to one of the wall panels, touched the corner and a door opened that we’d never seen and there was a safe which to this day we have yet to open.”

Track 2. One Eye - John Ordish (2013)

“In the banking hall when you were doing, whatever, function on the counter or doing clerical work you were always aware that from the balcony, it was possible that the general manager or some officer would walk past and pause for a moment just to see what was going on down below. And if he wasn’t satisfied with things he would get on the phone to the manager and say, ‘tell Mr Smith and Mr Jones to do things properly and not mess about.’ So, you were always a bit watchful with one eye on who was up there.”

Track 3. Power Sockets - Stephen Ashton (2025)

“So when we were refurbishing the building the biggest challenge that we’d faced was trying to get a modern building working in an older building, and still keep the character of that building. The room that we are in at the moment is a beautifully timber panelled room with a few power sockets already in the walls and we deliberately put the new power sockets back where the old ones were rather than where we would actually want them to be, so that we can maintain the character. And that kind of thinking carried on in every space in every aspect of the building as well.”

Track 4. The Conversations that Came – Stephen Ashton (2025)

“I feel the building that been a real success. All the way through the construction and refurbishment project that we were doing, we had interest from those who used to work in the building. Everybody that I spoke to that I explain what I was doing for my work said ‘oh I remember that building’. Sometimes it was there that they had their first bank account, sometimes like me, it’s next door to where we registered so we could get married. It’s routed into the history of people around the building and one of the best things about working on the project was the conversations that came from saying this is what I am doing at the moment.”

Track 5. The Greatest Challenge - Lesley Coley (2025)

“What do you think was the biggest challenge that you faced at work?”

“Probably being a woman… probably being a woman, it didn’t really stop me to a point, but I wasn’t prepared to move all over the country just to get another job, move to Yorkshire or move to Devon, I wanted to stay in that area but that was my choice… but that was my choice.”

Track 1. Leaking Like a Sieve - Stephen Ashton (2025)

“We had a lot of people asking us, why on earth we had brought an old bank riddled with asbestos, no heating, no electricity supply, leaking like a sieve. It rained inside when we first brought it and for most of the construction contract. And the reason was we wanted somewhere in the city centre and while there were plenty office blocks where we could of rented out a floor or a couple of floors, the history of the bank had a parallel with the history of the university. We are in site of the location of Mason College, and the thinking that the start of the University in Birmingham also started the bank so it was like almost coming back to the city centre in the right way and the end of a story.”

Track 2. Notes and Coins - John Ordish & Chris Bocott (2013)

“Well, they were done to encourage saving and there were three types, this tank, there was a book type”

“Book type.”

“And a smaller silver box type. And the notes went in there and the coins in there and they bought them in and obviously you opened them and credit the account with the contents.”

“Didn’t you used to have a master key, John that used to open all those up?”

“No, there was different keys.”

“There were three different keys.”

“There were the three different keys?”

“I’ve got the key to this one but not the others. You can imagine when people put notes in rolled up and they were tight with notes, it was a bit of a pain opening them and straightening them up.”

Track 4. Red Biro - Tom Murphy (2013)

“In those days it was very common for people of 16, to be taken on at 16, and work through the bank with experience and qualifications. In those days you could change your job 5 days a week there was plenty of work everywhere. This being a mainly industrial area, not many young lads went into clerical work, so it was quite a thing to come into a bank at 16. You weren’t normally allowed on the counter for one year, you were kept at the back, and you were taught the job and taught how to deal with customers before you were allowed on the counter and then it was quite a daunting thing because everything was manual there was no computers to add things up for you. You stared with filling ink wells and changing nibs on ink pens and you weren’t allowed to use a biro, blue or red. It was a big thing when you were allowed to use a red biro first because in the ledgers you would put the deposits in blue ink and you were allowed to use a red biro for credits that came in for salaries and deductions from wages from other companies.”

Track 4. How the building was then - Stephen Ashton (2025)

“To have the original photographs that were taken before the opening, and it was produced in preparation for the opening to provide that background for when Prince George came and opened the building the first time. So it didn’t have photographs of the opening, but the photographs of the building taken for the opening. The photographs that we saw in that programme were influential because we could see the parts that were important at that time and we wanted to make sure if you were to put a camera in the same place, you’d be able to tell that it was the same place and it still capture the feel of how the building was then.”

Track 5. What they were after was our technology - Lesley Coley (2025)

“One of the big changes I saw was when Lloyds took us over. Although it was supposed to be an amalgamation, it turned out that what they were after was our technology. TSB were far in advance of what Lloyds had got. I was working for the security’s department, and we had computers, we did our own letters, we did our own documents, we even had a machine that stapled them like a booklet, we did it all. Then when we amalgamated with Lloyds, we looked at their desks and they’d got a machine on their desks that looked like a computer, so we thought they’d got computers like us. No. They had to dictate their letters over the phone, they couldn’t produce their own documents, we went back light-years. And instead of giving their staff the equipment that we got, they took the equipment away from us cause they couldn’t afford it.”

Track 1. A Formal Occupation - Lesley Coley (2025)

“All the branch managers, everybody you always called them mister. Some of the people, the first cashiers were called miss, and some of the people don’t know their first names because they were never mentioned. It was formal, all the men were in suits, it was a formal occupation.”

Track 2. Bread & Butter - Margaret Stanley (2013)

“So, on a Friday, yes, you could come in from your branch, because it, your branch was closed at 3 o’clock and they’d open again at six. Some people were lucky enough to be able to come in and get a tea. But of course, you could play table tennis which is what I looked forward to. But they only charged you coppers really for a bread and butter and jam and a pot of tea. Which in those days we were grateful for, yeah.”

Track 3. Circular Queue - Jeanette Parkes (2013)

“When I was at Wells Green, when there was, how many of us on the counter? Three then. There was like the first cashier was a lad, and then Derek and then me. And these two on a Saturday morning were looking for the prettiest girls. So, they were trying to pick out all the pretty girls in the queue to have serve next, because they used to have there didn’t used to be one queue to each till they used to have one queue that curled round and round. Oh, they were devils!”

Track 4. Dead Man - Jeanette Parkes (2013) 

“It was coming up to the 31^st of March, it was the day we were about to either start doing the balance and we had to open on the Saturday morning. The manager had gone down to another branch I don’t know whether we had run out of money or whatever it was, but he’d gone so there were only two cashiers. And all of a sudden, this poor chap on the other side, dropped down dead. So there we were thinking ‘ah’. I mean the place was full all you could see was heads. So, we had to stop everything and call for an ambulance, because there was no manager there to do it, and then carry on serving while... I mean it was a shame really because when his wife came you know we had to tell a slightly different story because there’s no way you could just say ‘well we carried on serving because there was so many people there!’ I mean it was just awful really, he just went boof, down like that.”

Track 5. Dress Materials - Margaret Stanley (2013)

“This was when I was at Birchfield branch, we got to draw some money out from the joint stock branch, which was Lloyds bank down the road. Well, the manager had signed these… what did they call them Ray?”

“Well, they were check weren’t they.”

“To draw out all this money… “

“Special checks for us to walk down….”

“... And put them in the suitcase. And then he suddenly thought he wanted some more coupons and saving stamps that you had to get from head office. So, he asked me if I’d go. So, I picked up the suitcase and off I went and picked up the saving stamps and the coupons. And at the time Greys - which became Debenhams - had got a sale on and so I went up and had a look, bought some dress material, put that in the suitcase and then went back to Birchfield branch where the manager and assistant manager were waiting for me anxiously. And they couldn’t wait to get the case off me of course inside the case were these signed checks for so many thousand pounds. And because when they opened the case, they see all this dress material!”

“Caught in the act.”

Track 6. Ex-Wives and New Wives - Christine Carroll (2025)

“When I was a relief cashier, I went round Harborne, Weoley Castle, Ladywood, that sort of area and nearly everybody was engaged or married to somebody else at another branch. Once you got married I think they split you up but if you were engaged you could stay at the same branch. But, yea, a lot of people met. One of my best friends, Gary Granger met his wife, Julia, at Harborne and there still together now so fifty years later.”

“So there was a lot of husbands and wives working at the bank?”

“Yes an awful lot of husbands and wives, also ex-wives, and new wives so some controversy then, so they had to be moved or split up so they didn’t see each other, but yes it was a very friendly bank.”

Track 7. Mahogany Counters - Margaret Stanley (2013)

“They used to have beautiful mahogany counters even the branches. We used to have to close the doors at 3 o’clock. And I used to have to go and close the door and I used to leap on the counter and slide down the customer side, it had a slope on it. I used to swing my legs over and go and close the door”

“You could have been in a circus, jumping around like this.”

Track 8. No Bandit Screens - Lesley Coley (2025)

“At that point there were no bandit screens.”

“Could you explain what a bandit screen is?”

“It’s the glass that comes down that partitions you off, so if we had a bank raid which luckily I never was in, they just vaulted the counter and came over the top. And I do know people, that cashiers would possibly have their handbags underneath the counter or at the back, and they would have their handbags taken as well.”

Track 9. Only brought into Broad Street if you were naughty - Christine Carroll (2025)

"I was working at Quinton but I was a relief cashier so I used to go round all the local branches. And one day I got a phone call and was told I was coming to Broad Street. You were only brought into Broad Street if you were naughty. So I was really upset and contacted the manager and he came out to see me and said ‘no, we need a good cashier to come into Broad Street, so we want you and we want to train you up for the foreign till’. So I came here and I was trained up for the foreign till, and they were olivettis at the time, so very noisy, very cattery, very, you type information in but very manual. And then an advert came in the local staff magazine for people wanting to work in computer services, or computer systems as it was called then. So I applied and thought, well, give it a go. I think the interview was in this room, and it was a line of men here, and me. And the first question was, how were you going to cope working with seven other men, because you are going to be the only woman. So I was a bit taken back, and I thought I haven’t got this job, I don’t care I’ll just say what I like. I was a bit forthright and told them I thought I’d bring some humour and female company into the office. And then they asked me how I am going to get to Wythenshawe, which is where the computer office was, and ‘have you got a car?’ I said no I share it with my husband, ‘well how are you going to cope?’ By this time I’d had it so I thought I’ll just chop the car in half and he can have the front and I’ll have the back and I literally was going to go at that point, then they offered me the job because it was so cheeky. So I then went into the computer systems department but there was a big hold up, we couldn’t get any of the equipment, so for a year we didn’t put any new computers into the branches. And then after a year we started putting them in branch by branch, and I had to go out and teach the staff how to use them. And it was an eye opener, it reduced the workload so much for everybody but there were problems obviously, setting it up. It was all new, computers weren’t a thing then so it was a very unusual job and I got sprayed all around the country. So I had to go to Coventry, Walsall, Wednesbury, all the Birmingham branches so it was an interesting job and a lot of teaching which I really enjoyed.”

Track 10. Sort Codes - David Parkes 

“This is a list of the bank’s branches, which we identified by sort code numbers. Rob and I will list them off.”

“Yep.”

“Head office, Acocks Green, Alum Rock, Aston, Aston Cross”

“Balsall Heath, Bearwood, Brandwood”

“You’ve missed out Billesley”

“Missed out Billesley sorry, Brandwood, Bordesley Green, Bournville… pick it up for me quick”

“Brandwood, Cotteridge, Duddeston, Erdington, Farcroft, Great Barr, Hslesowen, Hall Green, Handsworth, Harborne,”

“Hay Mills, Hockley, Horsefair, Kings Heath, Kingstanding, Kitt’s Green,”

“Ladywood, Little Bromwich, Longbridge, Lozells, Maypole, Mosley,”

“Nechells ... the branch you said was closed?”

“Newtown Road”

“Newtown Road thank you. Northfield, Albury, Perry Beeches, Perry Common, Black Heath Pype Hayes, Quinton, Rotton Park, Rubery, Saltley.”

“Sandwell, Selly Oak, Selly Park, Shard End, Sherlock Street, Shirley, Short Heath, Small Heath, Smethwick,”

“Solihull, Sparkbrook, Sparkhill, Springhill,”

“Springfield before Springhill,”

“Springfield, Springhill, Stechford, Stirchley, Sutton Coldfield,”

“Tower Hill, Ward End, Wells Green, also known as Sheldon”

“Weoley Castle, Aston Newtown, Witton, Yardley, Great Barr,”

“City, West Heath, Bartley Green, Castle Vale, Chelmsley Wood, Four Oaks and Botley.”

“There you are!”

“Very impressive!”

Track 11. Lesley Coley - Standing on the doorstep (2025)

“At that time, we would all be standing on the doorstep waiting for the manager to come with the key to open up and then it was trying to get the counter ready for the day or the cash out on that day.

When customers came in and took money in and out, we had to, what they call, post it onto the card for their individual accounts and we had charts for the interest. They used to take it to red or the black depending on it was whether it was in and out.

All those had to be balanced, and the first cashier would sit there checking them all and then they'd all go back in because we were a hand-posting branch, not a machine-posting branch.

At that time, because of our connection with the council, we took gas, electric, water, rates bills and that was part of the junior's job to collect those off the cashiers and put them onto the relevant slips to be balanced at the end of the day and the checks as well so that was all part of the process at that time.”

Track 12. David Parkes - Stray cat (2013)

“But when the bank actually first started in 1919, and the staff went out to branches, they were all temporary premises, so there was probably not even a counter there then, but each of them were issued with a revolver, amazingly, and five rounds of ammunition.

There are stories, such as one branch was having trouble with a stray cat which kept pestering the staff. After a few days, the stray cat disappeared, but it was found that one of the rounds from the ammunition had also disappeared.

And then apparently one branch, they used to have target practice in the cellar beneath the branch, and another branch um, a lady, a member of staff who had a day off, went into another branch and the manager there was showing her the revolver, sort of showing off a bit, and of course it went off, made a hole in the sleeve and bedded the bullet in the roof. So that was security in those days.”

Track 13. Lesley Coley - The same people coming in (2025)

“In a bank in my day, you used to get the same people coming in every week and you'd get a bit of a relationship with that person but now I would say you only get the people that can't use the internet, people only come in if they've got a problem or need something particular because they all do their transactions on the computer or on their phone.”

“And do you think that's a sadness in a way?”

“Yes, it is, because you got to know whether people were all right and people were helped, people that were in financial difficulties and that, they got somebody to talk to and could be helped.”

“So, you felt that the bank probably played a really important part within the local community?”

“Oh yes, I would say so, yes.”

Track 14. Christine Carroll - We all hid when they came in (2025)

“At Quinton Branch, the customers were very varied; it's quite a wealthy area, or it was. So we had some customers who got an awful lot of money and some customers who were incredibly poor. We had a lot of lady savers who saved with the little money boxes, and we all hid when they came in because we hated opening them and getting all the money out and counting it.

We had a lot of people who paid in cash and were paid in cash, so they'd come in with the cash, they'd pay all their bills, and then work out what they were going to do with whatever they got left. The women seemed far more budget-conscious than the men, but generally really nice, down-to-earth customers, very few nasty ones, particularly in Quinton. As I say, a lot of them had got an awful lot of money, and they were very proud of their passbooks that showed the balance after every transaction, and if the Olivetti terminal didn't print it properly, you had to do it all again and write it in. They were very very proud of their money.”

Track 15. Jeanette Parkes - Wooden tills (2013)

“At Weoley Castle I was never very tidy, and the sort of ten-shilling and pounds were more in the vogue then as to, like, 20-pound notes now. So when we closed the doors at 12 o'clock I suddenly look at my till, which was a great huge wooden till and it was absolutely piled high with ten-shilling notes and pound notes and coins just all over the place and it used to take me three quarters of an hour to balance and as we had to balance to the last penny on a Saturday morning after a busy morning sometimes that was hell and I wished I could just leave it and go home and leave it till Monday but we couldn't.”

Track 16. Lesley Coley - Working class people (2025)

“Birmingham Municipal Bank was set up by the council for the people. The people that used our bank would not go into Lloyds or some of the other banks. They were working-class people just trying to save a little bit of money to enhance their lives.

If it hadn't have been there, that money would have been under their mattress or whatever. It was a social thing to help them up the ladder. I think it was a very good thing for the working-class person and for women.

Women wanted to save, especially during the Second World War. The men were away, and they wanted to save, so they got some independence and got some money just in case or for after the war.”

Track 1. A Chatty Time - Jeanette and David Parkes (2025)

“The best thing was the rhubarb crumble, they did a really nice rhubarb crumble.”

“He loves crumble.”

“That’s brilliant, rhubarb crumble is very good, it’s one of my favourites. And did you have to pay extra for that lunch?”

“We paid for it, was it 2 shillings?”

“So that gave you also a real time to just connect to each other and talk to each other.”

“Mind you, you used to more or less sit at the same table every day, didn’t you?”

“Oh yes, everybody.”

“But at least you had a chatty time and that sort of thing, because really when we worked here, you worked hard but you played hard. And we had some good outings.”

Track 2. A Chemistry Set - Lesley Coley (2025)

“We did have difficulty with the presents because unless you’d actually got a child aged nine, a boy, you didn’t actually know what they wanted. And also the wrapping of the gifts we found difficult. But we did find a company who would do that for us, so we just provided them with a list of saying so many girls of this age, so many boys of this age and they wrapped them all and we did that. And I can vividly remember this young man, there he was on the floor in the Assembly Room ripping open his present and his mum and dad watching. And he was absolutely delighted with the present he got, and it was a chemistry set. And I thought well we’d brought the right thing and he was absolutely delighted until I looked at mum and dad’s face and they weren’t too pleased. Because what had they just done, they just been into Birmingham and brought him a chemistry set for Christmas. They were good days, they were good days.”

Track 3. Big Sweater - Margaret Stanley (2013)

“The fellow that was organising it he was only about 19 and I wouldn’t dream of telling him that I was expecting. I mean it was such an embarrassing thing. So, I never told him. And then when we came to play the tournament it was some months later. He said, ‘you play net and I’ll cover the baseline’. So, I was having to leap in the air playing net! Cause I did wear a big sweater so he wouldn’t notice.”

Track 4. Bottom of the female board - Lesley Coley (2025)

“The Assembly Rooms is where you actually took the exams, I saw a lot of people from all over the branch network and I was one of the very few females that were actually taking their banking exams at that time. In the end of the Assembly Room there were beautiful honour boards with all the gold names on, and there was one especially for female officers and my name was the last one to be put on, the bottom of the female board. Which unfortunately we can’t find, got some photographs of when they were taken down, but we can’t find any photographs when they were actually, actually up on the wall, it is a shame.”

Track 5. Football - Ray Stanley (2013)

“I played football for the second 11, once for first 11. Because I missed a … I let a goal in, and I should have headed it out. So, we lost that match 1-0, they never played me again. I don’t know why. I was the most… probably about the… in the two teams I was about the 23^rd in quality of the two teams. Don’t know why I never got another game. Y’know I just ran out of steam I think in the end. Y’know some of these young kids, and they were very young kids, fit as a fiddle. I didn’t play cricket, I could play table tennis”

Track 6. Lovely food all of the time - Christine Carroll (2025)

“We had silver service lunch, we had a tea trolley twice a day with a lady with a little apron and a white hat. Lovely food all of the time, so it was, I think it was far more formal, I enjoyed it, I liked it here. At the branch, you were luckily if you had got an oven and you could put your dinner in to cook half an hour before but here, everything was provided.”

Track 7.  Lunch in the Assembly Room - David Parkes (2025)

“Not long after the university had taken over the building here, I arranged for us to have a lunch up in the Assembly Room. We had a very pleasant meal. A lot of ex employees really enjoyed the occasion but of the location. They’d remember the time when that was the staff canteen or when there were social events here, like the children’s Christmas party or dances, and obviously that would bring back pleasant memories of the use of that room.”

Track 8. Table Tennis - Graham Capener (2013)

“I came in this broad street for the table tennis club because we ran a table tennis club on a Monday evening for about two or three hours from about 7 o’clock onwards. But other than that, my association with the banking hall or broad street is very limited.”

Track 9. The Exchange - Stephen Ashton (2025)

“While we were developing the project, I was reporting to a project board who were then reported to the university hierarchy, and one of the challenges during the construction and development of the building was what we were going to call it. And after a lot of discussions and recommendations backwards and forwards, the idea of calling the building The Exchange is an exchange of information between us and local businesses, between us and members of the public, it was generated, it was shared, it was tested and was fixed upon.”

Track 10. Treasure Hunts - Tom Murphy (2013)

“We had a, we had a [indistinguishable] one time I was treasurer for three years and the main activity was arranging treasure hunts and visiting places of interest. One place that sparks is Ansell’s Brewery at Cape Hill. And another one I missed was Rover, we went to, it was called Rover then, Layland. I missed that trip. Do you remember that trip?”

Track 11. TSB Trophy - John Ordish & Graham Capener (2013)

“The football team they participated against other banks all over the country, the first team. There was a TSB trophy and you’d go to places like Blackburn or Plymouth or places like that and compete. And I think one year they did win it.”

“They did actually win, yes, yeah”

Track 12. Waitresses Would Bring Out Your Dessert Later – David Parkes (2025)

“Waitresses would bring out your dessert, but you’d have to go to the servery who announced what main course you would have, which you would then take to the table yourself and the waitress would bring out your dessert later.”

Track 13. When We Received The Handover of the Building - Stephen Ashton (2025)

“So the original view that I had of the building was that it was a project that I didn’t want to touch, I called it project bargepole because you don’t want to touch it with a bargepole. It then came to be a project that I absolutely loved working on, and I still remember the day when we received the handover of the completed building from the contractor Galliford Try, and every single person that I spoke to on that day said this is the best project that they’d worked on because the building, while it was the gift that kept on giving from a challenge point of view, it was also the gift that kept on giving for making us feel really good about what we’ve been able to deliver.”