Not long after we heard the sad news of the Queen’s death last week Jack mentioned that whole generations of people in Britain had grown up only ever having handled coins with the head of Queen Elizabeth II on them. That had never ocurred to me before but of course he’s correct as when we in Britain went over to the decimal system of coinage all the old coins were removed from use. It was 1970 and I was in Primary 7 at the time and we were all given wee plastic sets of the new coins and were taught the new system, and told to take them home and teach our parents and grandparents!

Until then we were getting all sorts of coins in our change, it made life a bit more interesting, as a youngster I liked getting the pennies which had Queen Victoria on them, especially the really old ones of her when she was a young Queen. The coins in the photo below are some that I saved from those days.

The penny on the far left is a young Victoria but dated 1887, even though she was quite old by that time. The next one is a later Victoria penny after they changed the portrait, it was minted in 1900. Note the heads are both facing in the same direction. The next one is of her son King Edward VII, and he faces the opposite way from his mother. The next penny features his son King George V. For some reason I don’t have a penny of his son King George VI, the Queen’s father, but I do have him on a two shilling coin (it was often called a florin) and the small copper one above it is of him on a farthing, a quarter of an old penny. The one above that is him on a three pence(pronounced thruppence) but they were always called threepenny (thrupenny) bits. This one dates from 1942 and it’s a Scottish one as it has a thistle plant on it, well I think that’s what it’s meant to be. The two Georges’ heads face the same way as there was another king Edward VIII who came in between them but wasn’t around long enough to have coins minted during his short tenure before he abdicated. Those coins would have had the head facing the opposite way. The Queen Elizabeth penny dates from 1967, the thruppeny bit is dated 1960, it’s an English one with a portcullis on the other side, and lastly there’s an Elizabeth II half penny or ha’penny (pronounced haypenny – or even haypny). It dates from 1964 and has a sailing ship on the other side, like Blue Peter.

Back in those days you could learn about royalty and the succession just from going to the shops. I must admit though that it’ll be strange seeing King Charles’s head on a coin facing leftwards, but I suppose it’ll happen at some point!

The same rule about monarchs’ heads also applies to British postage stamps. Those will look quite different too from now on. It’s going to be weird.