Photographs
Shops
ATTERCLIFFE. Co-op (grocery dept.) Kirkbridge Road. "I remember getting a little pink slip .. after it had been shot across the store on a pulley." Membership matters: newsletter for Midlands Co-op members, Sept. 2006, p.6
BAKEWELL. "A drapers near the Rutland Arms". Operating in 1975. This England
BOLSOVER. Co-op. "For sale - Cash Railway, in good condition... Apply Co-operative Society, Ltd., Bolsover, Chesterfield." Derbyshire Times, 8 Mar. 1905, p.2
BUXTON. E.C. Milligans, 32 Spring Gardens. Wire carrier until demolished in 1970s and business bought by Potters. Wonders of the Peak website and Manager of Potters
BUXTON. Potters, 8 Terrace Road. "Potters the drapers has not changed much except that they no longer have those overhead wires that took the bills to the cashier." Pure Buxton website. (Present manager says they didn't have one.)
CHESTERFIELD. Co-op. Cash carrier. Jean Cooper in posting to Facebook
CHESTERFIELD. Rowell's. "Used to love watching the assistant send off your bill and cash, then it would come back with your receipt and change." Margaret Jaques in posting to Facebook
CHESTERFIELD. Swallows. Wire system. Alan Hopkinson
CHESTERFIELD. John Turners. Wire system. Alan Hopkinson and Janice Barnett in posting to Facebook
DERBY. "Butcher's or grocer's shop, away from the city centre". Wire system in 1950s. "One cable run .. exited the shop through a hole in the wall through which daylight could be seen. Presumably the cable led to the neighbouring house where the cash was handled." R.Williams
DERBY. Alexandres (gents outfitters), East Street/St Peters Street. "They had a fairly modern [pneumatic tube] system installed to take cash the short distance from the basement bespoke tailoring department to the cashier's office on the floor directly above." Lasted into 1970s. Robert Day
DERBY. Co-operative Provident Society. 127 Clarence Road. Former grocery branch, closed in 1960s. "They used a cash railway to send the money for the goods purchased to the cashier." Signs of the Past website
DERBY. Co-op, Balaclava Road. "The cash desk was high up at one end of the shop and the cash came up on wires in little cups. There were about six in the grocery and three in the butchery and when the shops were busy they came shooting up from all directions... There really was a hole in the wall at Balaclava Road; it was there for the carriers to come and go to the butchers next door." Derby Daily Telegraph, 25 Nov. 1997, p. 22
DERBY. Co-op, East Street/Albion Street. Pneumatic tube system in use throughout store in 1960s and early 1970s. Gone by 1980. Robert Day
• Wire system in main shop and pneumatic tube system in gents' outfitters. Knowhere
Noticeboard for Derby and
Bygone Derby and Derbyshire.
• Photograph of pneumatic tube terminals in cash office, thought to be Derby Co-op. Derby Telegraph website
DERBY. Co-op. Exchange Street. "Derby firemen .. supervised the removal of the airtube cash carrier motor from its special room at Derby Co-operative Society Ltd., Exchange Street, after its insulation caught fire." Derby Daily Telegraph, 29 Sep. 1958, p. 13
DERBY, Co-op. Near corner of Princes Street and Pear Tree Street. "Once inside the Co-op, my queuing time was spent in speculation of the aluminium cups zipping to and fro on their catenaries (overhead pulleys) from counter to cashier and back again. The cups traversed upwards and through a first floor aperture to the two or three ladies employed there to take the payment, issue the change and record the 'divi', Co-op style. From my youthful height of about three feet, I could only see the head and shoulders of these ladies. But they were a jolly lot, always ready to share a joke and banter with the counter staff and customers." Derby Evening Telegraph, 26 Nov. 2002, p.26
DERBY. Co-op, Allenton. "Inside the provisions store ... what took my attention was the overhead spring-loaded cash carrying mechanism... A quick pull of a dangling handle would send the container speeding upwards along its wire, to end up into a cubicle or what could be described as a Punch and Judy show, about ten feet above ground level. In it sat a woman, solemn, rarely speking, whose eyes missed nothing on the busy shop floor below. Her task was to empty the arriving containers, check the money and sales ticket, put any change and duplicate sales ticket in the container and then, a quick jerk on her despatch handle and the container would fly back down its wire to the waiting shop assistant, to give any change and ticket to the customer. Whatever noise rose from the floor of the shop, it was always to the sibilant accompaniment of the 'whooosh-whooosh' of those tubes passing to and fro that remain." Edward Garner. The centaur from the triangle: a boyhood in Derby. (Durban: Just Done, 2009), p. 41
DERBY. Jefferson & Sons, Cornmarket/Albert Street. "One of the latest American inventions is called the 'Cash Railway'... A really clever and ingenious aerial system of railway has been devised, with its lines, points, switches, carriers, stations, and all the rest of it. The money taken from the customer is placed in a hollow spherical carrier, which is then put in a small elevator and run quickly up aloft on to the line itself, along which the force of gravitation carries it to the cashier's desk... The 'Cash Railway' may be seen in constant operation at Messrs. Jefferson and Sons, Corn-market, Derby." Derbyshire Advertiser and Journal, 29 Oct. 1886, p. 8
• "Junior reqd. for office, mainly cash tube work." Derby Daily Telegraph, 26 May, 1950, p. 14
DERBY. Midland Drapers. Pneumatic tube system. Saga radio website also Soozie Treece on Walker and Ling Facebook page.
DERBY. Ranbys. Gipe system in 1950s. R.Williams
DERBY. Thurman and Malin, St Peter's Street. "Cashiers reqd. for Pneumatic Tube Room." Derby Daily Telegraph, 10 Mar. 1950, p. 14
• "Payment for items at Thurman and Malin, like many large stores of its era, was via a Lamson Tube system. Assistants would place the receipt and money in a brass container and this was dispatched by wires to the cashier who dealt with the transaction and returned the tube, with any change, to the counter." Derby Telegraph website, 29/12/14
DERBY. Whiteman. Had a contract with Lamson dated 1901, expiring 1906. One of the locations involved in the court case British Cash and Parcel Conveyors Ltd. v. Lamson Store Service Co. Ltd., 1908.
GLOSSOP. Glossopdale Co-op. "The Gipe system was also in use in the central stores of the Glossop Dale Co-operative Society in the 50s and 60s." A correspondent
LONG EATON. Co-op. "25 years' developments. Long Eaton Co-operative Society Ltd. 1910 - Centralised Cash Carrier System." Long Eaton Advertiser, 3 May 1935, p. 9
• "Footage of a cashier using an overhead cash carrier mechanism with wires." Opening Co-op Shops (1930s) in Media Archive for Central England
• "I
was called in to staff the cash desk at an out-of-town branch - grocery
and butchery. In my elevated glass cubicle, I managed the overhead spring
wires, which received cash from the counter and I sent back the change
in the whizzing metal canisters." Membership matters: newsletter
for Midlands Co-op members, Sept. 2006, p.6
MATLOCK. Marsdens (outfitters, drapers and costumiers), Dale Road. "When you had purchased your item the money was placed in a cylinder by the salesman or woman. The store used a cash system whereby the money containers travelled along wires from various points in the store to the cash office. Your change and receipt returned the same way. Marsdens' cash office was located between the main shop and the gents outfitters." Andrews Pages website
RIPLEY. Co-op, Nottingham Road. "Female cash desk operator required for Lamson Cash Tube system." Ripley amd Heanor News, 18 Nov. 1955, p. 2
SWADLINCOTE. Co-op, High Street. "The money-taking system was also, to me, increible. Overhead wires ran from the counters to a small hole in the wall, behind which was the cashier's office. Attached to the wire was a ball-like container which unscrewed into two halves... The assistant placed the bill and money into the ball and screwed it up. He then pulled a piece of elastic and the ball shot through the hole in the wall." You & Yesterday website
SWADLINCOTE. Salt's. Founded 1895. Cash ball system - see Reminiscences. Replaced by pneumatic tube system.
• "Sold
almost everything except food. They had shops at intervals all the way down the High Street. An unusual feature of the company was the use of Lamson tubes to take the customers' cash from the sale point to the cashier's office." You & Yesterday website
Museums
CRICH. Tramway Museum. From Hindleys, ATHERTON. Two propulsions and right-angle
bend. Includes a "curve car" - a carriage with a short wheelbase and gap on one
side for negotiating curves. "Too short to work properly. David Holt
indicates systems which
are still there (as far as I know) though they may not be working.