Taking Care Of The Pfennigs (6 May 1978)

“Hurray,” they said.  “We shall be late for the NAAFI.  It closes at five.”  I was amazed.  A NAAFI that closed at five – impossible!

“Perhaps it re-opens later?” I ventured.  They assured me it did not.

When we got there my bafflement increased.  This was not the sort of NAAFI you and I experienced during the war, cobber.  This was no tin shack where tea and wads and fags and notepaper and hair cream, but little else, could be had from about ten in the morning to ten at night and where nobody above the rank of a corporal was ever seen among the bods who lounged about on the hard chairs or made bedlam round the ruined piano in the corner.

This was a super-duper-market.  It did not dispense tea and wads – much to my disappointment, because I wondered whether a cup of NAFFI tea still tasted as bad as ever. Instead, it sold so many kinds of groceries, goods and articles that there did not seem any reason why anyone should go to a German shop for anything at all.  From Oxo cubes to hi-fi equipment it was all at the NAAFI.  And the prices of some things made the shipboard prices of those things look silly.  As a sideline, they even held sales of used cars from time to time.

The place was thronged with servicemen, entitled civilians, their wives and kids and was used by all, irrespective of rank.  I was amused to see chaps with crowns on their shoulders queueing behind privates at the cash tills while one or two of the latter chatted-up the till girls in passing.  I am not sure I did not even see one or two red-tabs, but that might have been at the bank, or the post office, or the lending library, or whatever.

There was a range of German shops on the site and I was told they had been allowed there in order to keep the NAAFI on its toes pricewise.

I am writing of my recent four to five weeks` visit to my son and daughter-in-law in Germany, of course.

Over the four or five weeks I tasted many different kinds of spirits, wines and lagers, but none of them were half as good as the Guinness I managed to obtain in a civilian mess.

Curious about the cost of living for the Germans, I was taken one day to one of their supermarkets down in the town.  There I made a list of the food prices, but interpreting them in terms of British pounds and pence is another thing altogether.  For instance, to go off food for the moment, how much in our money per gallon is a liter of four-star petrol at 95 pfennigs, (or .95 marks) with the exchange rate standing at 3.72 marks to the pound sterling.

Some of you might have the sort of slide-rule mind that can work that out, but not me.  However, for your benefit alone I here give a few prices: boiled ham, 100 grammes, .98m; roasting beef, 500g, 9.45m; stewing steak, 500g, 3.75m; a cheaper kind of instant coffee, 200g; 14.25m; butter 250g, 2.09m; 10 large eggs, 2.15m; tomatoes, 250g, 1.35m; onions, 1kg, .59m; potatoes, 2.5kg, .79m; potatoes, 25kg, 5.98m; good quality tea, 100g 3.50m; granulated sugar 1kg, 1.74m; milk 1 liter, .93m.

I am told that, on average the prices are somewhat higher than in our shops.  On the other hand the average industrial worker’s take-home pay in Germany is around £300 a month, which would more than offset the difference.  I had that figure from a knowledgeable German woman who spent an evening with us.  She also told us that the electricity bill for her large flat (which has oil-fired central heating) is £18.75 for each two-monthly period.  Incidentally, the Germans spell the word “liter” in their own way, just like that, so why shouldn’t we, instead of tamely agreeing to become Frenchmen, which is what we are rapidly becoming in many other respects besides this?

I also admire the Germans for their attention to the humble pfennig.  It is worth only about a farthing, but they make it count, as is shown by the prices I have given.

How different that attitude is from ours.  We stopped mining farthings, and now there is a move to throw our halfpennies after them.  But the Germans, even with their higher wages and with every fourth car on their roads an expensive Mercedes, stick to their farthings.  I would not be surprised to find this one of the prime causes of their low inflation rate.

But there are still some people over the water who either have faith in us or have even less faith in the Germans.  They are the Dutch.  After seeing the tulip fields and the flower festival, but before re-crossing the German border, we pulled up at a roadside flower-stall and my son’s wife got out.  She explained to the youth at the stall that we had no guilders, but could pay in marks.  The youth was about to accept the marks when an oldish man came from behind the stall and stopped him.  His gestures plainly indicated that he would not take marks.  So she then showed him a £1 note and he beamingly accepted it, though the marks would have been worth more!  I could only think that this was a case of old memories dying hard.

P.S.  The voyage from Rotterdam was made on a sea smoother than a park pond.  I slept seven hours and awoke to find the board already in the Hull dock.