Maybe it is a portent that things are changing.
My name is Archibald James. I am 65 years old and today was my last day at Greenfields. I worked there for fifty years, literally man and boy. I joined from school on the 1st September 1963 as an office junior. Greenfields is one of the last of the old-style London Banks. It offers banking services, safe keeping and utter discretion. In 1963, it was the epitome of pinstripe suit, rolled-up umbrella and bowler hat.
I soon acquired all three even though my first job was mostly about making tea and running messages. In truth, I think I was only offered the position because my father knew the manager, Mr. Stevenson, from their service days. The Bank Manager had been a navigator while my father was a pilot. There was a bond between them that was never discussed, but when my father asked if there was a job for his “average” son, there was no hesitation. That is how I became a city “gent”, well clerk initially, but that soon changed.
My father may have seen me as “average”, but Mr. Stevenson saw something else, and soon I was promoted through the ranks, so to speak. I was made a cashier and then assistant manager. The role of Assistant Manager had both good and bad aspects. On the plus side I was a City gentleman with the authority to approve loans up to £100, a large sum in those days. On the downside, my name took pride of place on the rota to open the bank at the start of day and close it at the end.
With the position of Assistant Manager came an office and a large mahogany desk with a green leather inlaid top. I felt very important and satisfied with my success and it was at that time my mother gave me an aspidistra plant. It had long leaves and sat in an ugly Victorian aspidistra pot placed on matching dish. My mother advised me to water it regularly, wipe its leaves once a month and make sure it was well drained.
At the time, the advice sounded much like, “Always wear clean underpants, never wear brown shoes in the City and mind your manners.” That is, it was good common sense advice that works, so much so that it was the very same plant I brought home almost 50 years later.
While my elevated position was one of trust it also meant many early mornings. In the middle of winter I would pick my way across Bank junction, walk up the side of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street (the Bank of England, if you don’t know) and up to Greenfield’s large bronze doors that looked out onto Moorgate. There I would meet a messenger, usually the Head Messenger, and together we would open up. I did this right up to the robbery of ‘69. That was a turning point for the bank and for me personally, but more of that later.
Back to today.
My retirement day had been perfectly pleasant. That is the best and only term for it. I had lunch with the Chairman in the Boardroom. The faces of old Greenfields’ bankers looked down on the two of us from their gilt frames on the wall. The best silver was out for use along with the fine crested china. A decanter of good wine, just good, accompanied a traditional meal of roast beef followed by apple pie and custard. It was very pleasant though after 50 years, I might have expected more.
In the afternoon, there had been the obligatory speeches, leaving cards and presentation from the proceeds of a collection among the staff. I am not sure that I needed another clock for my mantelpiece, but that is what I was given.
In his speech, Mr. Spencer, the Head of Risk, made mention of my long service, my immaculate dress sense and my great patience. He said all the nice things one might expect without really saying anything and certainly without any genuine warmth. As I also expected he did not talk about “the robbery”; no-one talks about the robbery when I am around.
So let me tell you what happened.
As per usual, on the morning of Monday 6th October 1969 I was due to meet Alf Bennett at Greenfields front door at 7:00am. The process demanded that it was always two people who entered the bank first even though there was only one, very large lock on the front door; a lock that had been there over 100 years and whose key I carried. My key was one of only three known to exist. Why was there just one lock with one key? Well, the thinking at the time was that everything of value was locked inside the vault at night. Even if someone could break in then they would also have to breach the large steel door or 3 feet of stone wall to find anything of value. In light of this, the Greenfield family liked the impression of confidence that the old bronze doors gave and accepted the single lock.
By 7:40, Alf had not arrived, and I knew I would need to decide what to do. As one would expect there were a few people passing like shadows in the street as I pondered my options. I noticed that the doors were not quite closed, there was a small crack between them that was not usually visible. Tentatively, I pushed against the right door and to my surprise it moved, just a fraction, but it moved.
On reflection and as was pointed out to me many times by the police, the insurers and my manager, I should have called for help or found a policeman. Remember this was long before mobile phones so there was no possibility of just standing there and phoning for help. What I actually did was push the door wider and entered cautiously. I saw the banking hall was a mess with desks and chairs upturned. The door to the teller’s counter was open and so was the wooden door leading to the basement ….and the vault.
They say that it was just after 7:45am that Florence and Agnes, the two cleaners, found me out cold lying on my back in the banking hall. I understand that I was then taken to St Barts Hospital, and it was there that I awoke the next day with my head swathed in bandages and a policeman sitting beside the bed. Not surprisingly they were keen on questioning me, but I was not much help. I told them that I had no memory after first entering the Bank. I had no idea how I came to be out cold and really was not much help.
It seems that the Police think that someone had hidden in the ceiling above the vault and looking down through a small peephole had watched the vault being opened and made a note of the combination. They had then emerged at the weekend, opened the vault and had plenty of time to rummage both the Bank’s valuables, including a stash of gold bullion, mostly smaller bars, and the safety deposit boxes.
The criminal then left the Bank through the front door. The lock I mentioned earlier could be opened from the inside without a key. It had not been designed to stop people breaking out, only those breaking in.
The Police found a mess in the vault. Mostly, the interesting, but only personally valuable items from safety deposit boxes. You may not believe me, but this list included one left plimsole, an old banana skin and the signed photograph of twin sisters, stars of the Hammer Horror films, dressed in diaphanous nightgowns.
For some reason no one was ever able to explain there were also a number of pieces of jewelry and gold coins scattered around. Whether the criminal was limited in what he could carry, a bag burst or maybe he was interrupted - by me possibly – we never found out, but the fact was a small number of valuable items were recovered from the floor of the vault.
Another interesting fact is that Alf Bennett was never seen again. This of course cast suspicion on him or at least on his involvement, but it could never be proved. Unfortunately, it also cast a shadow of suspicion over me. I could see in their eyes that the Police and my managers suspected that my amnesia was convenient, wondering if maybe I had been part of the gang and possibly the subject of a double cross that left me on the floor.
I believe that the insurance claim was for well over a £1million, but no one ever truly new how much had been taken as not all clients wanted to own up to what they had kept safe from prying eyes.
No matter how I protested my innocence the taint was there. To many people I was thought a hero or at least a victim of the robbery and the Bank would have appeared churlish had they sacked me, but my promotions stopped. I also knew any reference I received would include some coded elements that another employer would understand. Thank goodness for the unspoken debt owed to my father.
Initially I was angry and frustrated, but in the end I decided to be patient and work my time at Greenfields. At various points, I was put in charge of Office Services, the Charity Committee, disaster-recovery planning and other safe, but unexciting roles. I was never given the keys to the Bank again nor was I given access to the vault. The public argument was that I had done my bit and the Bank would ask no more of me, but I knew I was marked, as did everyone else.
All through this I would smile and perform my duties such that there were no grounds for complaint. Wherever I went - oh yes, I never had an office again – my aspidistra went with me. I watered it, wiped it and checked the drainage. It even flowered once in a while, just as it was doing today.
I know many questioned why I stayed at Greenfields, on what was increasingly a modest salary. I just told them that I knew better days were ahead, and that I was comfortable being where I was.
But as always, good things come to an end, and my retirement day approached. I could put off leaving Greenfields no longer. I sorted my fully funded, final salary pension scheme. Ask any banker and they will tell you that you don’t see many of those these days. I sorted my other affairs and just this afternoon I walked out of the Bank and into a taxi. While I carried my plant, two colleagues carried my box of personal effects and the mantle clock. I know I had a smile on my face, but few would or even could guess why.
And here I am now. My house was paid for long ago and my pension means I will never go without food and heat. It also allows for the occasional bottle of good scotch and one holiday a year.
As I said the flames of the open fire flicker on my whisky and I start to dream of a house on one of the Greek Isles. The gentle waves lap on the beach to the back and the sun beats down on the front while a housekeeper looks after my still modest, though very comfortable needs.
It is time to draw upon my real pension, the one that has kept me smiling all these years. It helped me put up with being overlooked for promotion. I can now admit to myself that I do, in fact, know most of what happened that fateful day in October 1969, well until I was knocked unconscious.
I entered the Bank carefully listening for any sound. It did not appear that anyone was there as I stepped over scattered pencils and broken crockery. I had moved towards the vault and found it was also ransacked. The safety deposit boxes hung out of their holes, lids open and contents either scattered or ignored.
I did notice that the usual small pile of gold ingots was gone, but was surprised that a number of small bars lay on one of the inspection tables. I noticed the sparkle from a handful of necklaces and earrings that seemed pushed to the edges and corners of the floor. To sparkle in that way they had to be diamonds, mostly set in gold fittings. My banker’s eye could not help estimating the value I could see and judged it to be about equivalent to 20 years’ salary.
I was never shown the inventory of what was recovered by the Police, but I know that many of the pieces I saw would have been missing.
How I ended up out cold is the memory I have genuinely lost. I think that as I went for help, I must have trodden on those scattered pencils and lost my footing, falling backwards heavily, but I can't be sure. But then, neither can anyone else.
With this self-confession over I pick up a hammer and swung it at the aspidistra. If the flower could yell it would do so for as the china breaks into a hundred pieces the plant collapses in a heap. I have not watered it for a week or so, and it is very dry. As I reach for a handful of dirt the glint of wealth winks at me from the base of the pile. My Greek home becomes real as a handful of gold and diamonds appear in my fingers after the remaining soil has fallen away.
As my mother once said, one should never doubt the value of good drainage.
