Through a Child’s Eyes

When I was nine years old my parents bought their own butchery business and among the items left in the shop was a small chest freezer containing ice cream lollies. Not long after moving in I asked my Dad if I could have a lolly.

“Yes, if you pay for it,” he replied.

I had a three-penny piece for my pocket money, so I proudly put this into the wooden till and tucked into my lolly. When I had finished eating it I then took the three-penny piece back out of the till and put it back into my pocket.

Later that day I repeated the same exercise. I put the three-penny piece in the till and helped myself to another lolly. When my Dad came into the shop he asked me what I was doing, so I innocently told him.

He then explained that putting money in the till was to pay for the ice cream and that once I had done that, the money now belonged to the shop ,and I was not to take it back again.

I remember feeling devastated, my pocket money was gone!

He told me that paying for the lolly would enable him to buy more lollies to sell.

Up to that point, I never thought about how things were bought and sold or how important money was.

That day and incident was a huge learning for me, and so my understanding of money and how it is used began.