If you read the cites you will see the use of “Scottish” but not “English”.
Apart from apparently near motorways, with “near” being an unspecified distance which I am assuming to be “a bit further away from whatever anyone else thinks is near”.
But Bank of England notes are legal tender in England and Wales alone. Which makes them English Legal tender. Which gives them a English identity. They also represent the Pound Sterling which is a different concept to an English bank note. All Scottish, NI and English issued notes are representative of Sterling but are not sterling as such.
Bank of England notes are certainly referred to as English money in Scotland Nd NI. I often ask for ‘English money’ from Tesco when sending birthday or Christmas money. Extreme nationalists will refuse change in English notes and most often the English notes are banked along with damaged notes and undamaged Scottish notes retained in the till. This refusal was most prominent a couple of years ago when Scottish banks cut back on the production of fivers and generally only English fivers were available; you would often be asked if you minded receiving English notes or would rather have coin.
Which is the case as those areas that see Scottish money more regularly (close to main highways and in cities) are more likely to recognise and accept them. This is even more of a problem for high value notes- I would hesitate to try to spend a fifty outside Scotland or banks.
What experience do you have of trying to spend Scottish notes out with cites and highways in England. Nil I suspect. To people who use Scottish money every day it is a recognised problem when visiting England.
No, Pjen, it’s a meme amongst Scots that won’t die, in the same way a large number of Britons are convinced the EU outlawed bendy bananas. One or two refusals on the part of small English shopkeepers is enough to keep the idea alive and reinforce the storytelling for another generation, whilst hundreds of thousands of uneventful transactions where Scottish notes were exchanged without issue are ignored.
As I said earlier I’ve been travelling back and forth regularly between Scotland and England for 12 years and never once had a problem. You’re not the only English person to have ever lived North of the border.
Other’s experience may vary. Mine does and according to Google I am not alone.
Yes, you rather inconveniently linked to a Reddit thread a few hours ago that had, as its top-rated comment, a poster saying he had never had a problem getting rid of Scottish promissory notes in England. We all remember.
Why is it that English shopkeepers often refuse to accept Scottish banknotes?
http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-19878,00.html
This site has a conversation about people’s difficulties with Scottish notes and also gives a further example of surcharges at exchanges
http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-19878,00.html
One counter example does not prove a generality. Most people in Scotland are aware of difficulties using Scottish money abroad and in England. Contrariwise recently it was difficult to spend old English £20 notes before the new one was introduced.
Quite what being 10 miles from the M40, a motorway that ends south of Birmingham, has to do with anything I really don’t know. Do you really think people are taking a detour to the small towns to use their money from up North? As someone that has worked retail in Warwickshire (for my sins I used to work in McDonald’s as a student) I can happily tell you that they don’t.
As I mentioned upthread I used to get a lot of Scottish money when I was younger, what with having a Mother from Renfrew that is the eldest of eight. You are aware of the concept of relatives popping a fiver or a tenner in a card for birthdays and Christmases, right?
Interesting anecdote. Thank you.
Interesting anecdote. Unfortunately not in accord with the generalosotion which can be easily googled. Two solid references above.
So his stories are anecdotes, and the stories you refer to are solid references. Typical.
Slam dunk
Survey of Which Magazine customers
More than half of Which? members who have tried to spend Scottish or Northern Irish banknotes in England or Wales have experienced difficulties, Which? research reveals.
Of the 1,069 people we surveyed, 650 have attempted to spend Scottish or Northern Irish banknotes in England or Wales – 32% were given the impression by shop staff that they were unhappy to accept the notes; 26% were refused service altogether.
Those actually living in Scotland or Northern Ireland were significantly more likely to report difficulties when venturing south of the border or across the Irish Sea, with 37% encountering shop staff unhappiness and 35% saying they had been refused service.
www.which.co.uk/news/2014/10/scottish-banknotes-cause-consumers-difficulties-383894/
Can we now accept that there is a difficulty with spending Scottish notes in England? I can’t see much wriggle room left for naysayers. Maybe Which is a secret Nationalist paper?
It’s the same reference twice (the N&Q column). Which is
a) Anecdotal, which apparently is a bad thing now;
b) About 10 years old? The column hasn’t run for ages, and the webpage format is from at least two rebrands ago;
c) Mainly based on people recounting experiences which happened to them a long time ago.
As an evidence base for “what it is like to spend Scottish notes in England” it lacks a little something.
I have referenced two discussions on independent sites discussing such problems. You will note that I have now published a Which survey that supports my take on the problem.
…
The Which survey is more interesting, although the number of people who have actually been refused service is only 15%. And this only had to have happened once in their entire lives for it to register. It doesn’t tell us how many times it’s happened, or how many times they’ve successfully spent Scottish notes. If refusal happens >5% of all attempted transactions, it’s a problem. If it happens once or twice among thousands of transactions, it’s an occasional niggle.
Further cites
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/spending-scottish-money-in-englandwales
For an avowedly absent problem, it’s getting a lot of Google hits.