ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Yes Nev, I remember all that nonsense about calling it the 'royal' thankfully it didn't get off the ground!
At that time I had started an apprenticeship and was getting about Eight Pound per week and when that changed to Sixteen dollars something, it didn't seem to go as far for some reason!!

Ron

...Jesus Ron, did you do an apprenticeship in bank robbery?....I started my apprenticeship as an electrician in 1970 and was getting $20.00 A week, less tax!

Ah yes Ross, those were the days, when inflation meant pumping up your tyres!

Ron

I remember trying to explain the decimal system to my grandfather who was about eighty at the time. Happenies (half pennies) and threepenny bits disappeared altogether and he wanted to know where they went! The six pence coin became five cents and a shilling only had ten cents and not 12 pennies. Instead of 120 pennies making ten shillings it only took one hundred cents to turn the ten shilling note into a dollar and a five pound note became ten dollars. He was sure that he was being robbed! He never mastered metrics and would always deal in pounds shillings and pence until he died a decade later.

Vic Jefferies wrote: He was sure that he was being robbed

Maybe he wasn't wrong.

My father-in-law resolutely refused to use metric weights and measures, he always asked me to convert them. That was no good because my maths are hopeless. He used to say " what's 10 centimetres "
I'd say a tenth of a metre he would sort of snarl at me " how many inches !! ".
I would feign no knowledge of the term inches. We got on OK really I think

Interesting Vic that the yanks have had decimal currency all along and we copied their money terms, and we now use decimal weights and measures and the yanks still use the imperial weights and measures. How does that figure ?

What I find interesting is that we still refer to the weight of babies in pounds. If I hear a baby's weight in kilos it doesn't mean much to me. I can think in inches and centimetres. Those measures changed later didn't they?

Our local paper reports birth weights in kilos

Yes the metric weights and measures came later, I can't remember when.
Some wag tried to spread the rumour that we were going to have metric time, i.e. 100 seconds in a minute, 100 minutes in an hour, 10 hours in a day, 10 days in a week, 10 weeks in a month and so on

Yes Heather, the decimal currency came in 1966, the rest of the metric came in I think in 1975, but it was sort of eased in over a bit of time. The only way I got familiar with metric measurements was to get rid of my tape measures with both measurements on them making me have to learn the metric version. I my have told the story before, but in the late 80's I was working with an old bloke who still struggled with metric, we were out at Oodnadatta power station and had to measure something up,
'How long is it Ken?' I yelled
'One metre and two and a half inches.' he replied...

...you out shuffled me Neville...

Out shuffled ??