Scottish Banknotes - another rant!

I visited Friarage Hospital in Northallerton, Yorkshire yesterday, and went to buy a sandwich for lunch in the League of Fiends shop.

I handed over a fiver, and as soon as the assistant saw it she paused and referred to a notice posted on the wall behind her head which read "We do not accept Scottish Banknotes - they are not legal tender and are easily forged"

WTF??????????????



She wouldn't take it !!! Luckily I had an English tenner. I said "What? That's the biggest load of shite I've heard in my entire life - if that was the truth then the economy in Carlisle would grind to a halt!" I appealed to the people behind me, who all stared ahead blankly not wanting to get involved, and probably not even knowing or caring that Carlisle is in England.

"It's not me who makes the rules" said the woman behind the till; and of course I found my calm space and realised that not only was she right, she's probably a volunteer so certainly doesn't deserve me mouthing off at her...

Anyway... I was a bit mad at this notice being factually wrong. I can understand people not wanting to accept banknotes they are not familiar with for forgery reasons - people who see these notes regularly know that there are three Scottish banks who print their own and they keep redesigning them; so it's very hard to get used to one image as being acceptable.

I bet there are people out there that don't even realise that the Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank are separate entities! The BOS joined with the Halifax to make HBOS

Clydesdale Bank banknotes

Bank of Scotland banknotes

Royal Bank of Scotland banknotes

(The history of some of the images are described on that website too - interesting!)

I quite like these notes; but I can sympathise with people who don't. But to say they are not legal tender is not only wrong but for some reason quite offensive to me.

Oh and by the way, I'm English.

So... I looked it up. According to Wikipedia (hmmm open to challenge perhaps) :

Scottish banknotes are unusual in that they are not legal tender anywhere in
the UK - not even in Scotland - they are in fact promissory notes.
Indeed, no banknotes (even Bank of England notes)
are now legal tender in Scotland - although like debit cards and credit cards, they are still used as money.

How very odd. So, if English pound notes are not legal tender in Scotland, are there any shops in Scotland refusing English notes? God... can you imagine the chaos???

So although to the letter of the law they are maybe right, next time I'll offer to pay by credit card and see if they accept that ;-)