General Chat

DO YOU REMEMBER THE PROVIDENT CHEQUE ,
WHEN I WAS FIRST MARRIED I USED TO GET A £10
ONE,AND WHEN HAVING MY DAUGHTER I WENT TO
THE MAIN WAREHOUSE AND GOT NAPPIES AN SUCH.
I ALWAYS PAID EXTRA FEW PENCE EACH WEEK TO
FINISH IT UP QUICK,
THE PROVI MAN WAS ALSO THE TALLY MAN IF YOU NEEDED SOMETHING ASK HIM ,NEXT WEEK HE WOULD BRING IT,
AND IF IT'S WHAT YOU WANTED YOU PAID HIM WEEKLEY

Oh Dizzi, you sent me down Memory Lane :-)
I remember the Provi Checks for school uniforms, and also remember hiding under the table or under the stairs with my mum and siblings when the tally man knocked - my heart would race because I didn't understand why I was scared, just that I was lol :-D :-D

Mum always had provi checks think they were paid back over. 21 weeks so the 21stst week was the interest

Mum too got them for school uniforms. Shoes etc for us kids

She was a bit flummoxed when I went to grammar school cos a local posh shop sold the special style school tunics and blazers and they were too posh for the provident cheque.

She bought me a navy blazer from a local store with the provi ,much too big so it lasted , and then we bought the blazer badge from school to sew on the pocket. Always envied the girls who had their badges embroidered on

Mum too paid weekly into the local pub ,s Christmas club and they paid out early dec so she had her money for the Christmas shopping

Provident and their tally men and women are still very much in business.

My Mum used the Provi cheques too, and my school uniform came from the Co-op. Lots of others had the same uniform, the blazers were bright emerald green but the blazers from the posher shop that didn't take Provi cheques were a much softer green. It was wrong really as ours were the proper uniform colour that went with the striped ties and such but the soft green blazer wearers were obviously better off so it showed us up. Shouldn't have been allowed really.

Soon after I left school, a lot of my friends were getting leather coats, as fashionable then, but I had to get Provi cheque and get my coat from Co-op, and they only had suede coats in my size. It was still fashionable but not nearly as practical as it marked when wet and got marked more easily. I ended up cutting it up and using the good bits for patches on my bed base where my cats had scratched it to bits.


Lizx

Yes and if you did not use the whole amount you got co-op checks tin tokens to use it the store ;-)

Not sure whether Provi cheques are still available but I do know that the Provi still exists - there's a branch on the floor above my dentist.

For those in NE England, do you remember Doggart's Department Stores? They had a similar scheme operating. I was a Saturday girl there when I was still studying.

my DIL ,sells Provident loans she is a Provident representative, they are much the same as the old cheques, and are still very popular.. she has her own collecting area, as do all the reps.
:-)

I grew up in Oldham, Lancashire, and there was some sort of club during at least the 1950s and 1960s where you paid in so much per week, and got stamps to put on a card.

Then you could take the filled card to many of the shops, and exchange the card for goods


From the age of about 12 to 17, I worked on Saturdays and in summer at a high class ladies and childrens' dress shops, which accepted these cards ............ and one of the "joe" jobs I had to do was take all the cards accepted at the shop over a week to the office of the club, and hand them in so the shop could be reimbursed.


My mother used to also subscribe to this ................... after she died, Dad found several completed cards in a drawer, and thought he should use them. He decided we needed a new carpet in the living room, and went to a carpet shop in town that said they accepted these cards ................... but they were really really snooty with him when he handed them over to pay for the carpet he chose :-(


I don't remember any staff at the dress shop being snooty to anyone who handed over a fully stamped card to them


I can't remember what the company was called that ran this scheme.

It was separate from the Christmas Clubs, which also operated at that time