Fleetstreet legend and Mirror columnist, Paul Routledge, sends gentle tales from his West Yorkshire allotment, Mrs R’s pantry and his local, the Old White Bear. This week, Paul is misty-eyed over the importance of a man’s wallet – which can never be replaced by a smartphone
The demise of the leather wallet is being confidently predicted as young people give up using cash.
I trust this prophecy will prove no more accurate than reports of Mark Twain’s death, dismissed by the author as greatly exaggerated.
Seven out of ten 16-24 year olds prefer to pay with their phones or even their watch. And almost a third of all transactions are now contactless.
But the wallet is a sign of growing up. It has to be leather, because that’s what your father has, and your big brother. It’s like getting a passport to adulthood.
And it’s very much a man-thing. Girls have purses they keep in their handbags, among many other personalia. Men have wallets they keep in their pockets.
That’s where you put the ten-bob and one-pound notes from your first earnings, proud of your work. I still have my first wallet, dating from 1960, light-brown leather, long enough to take notes without them being folded.
It fits into the inside jacket pocket like a proper gent’s, unlike the folding version of today, which goes in the trousers and has lots of slots for credit cards.
There were no credit cards then, not among working class people anyway. Most families didn’t even have a bank account.
Wallets are full of memories: pictures of loved ones and intimate treasures. I still have a photo of me and my teenage bride taken in a booth on Glasgow station on the eve of our wedding.
Mrs R’s father kept a lock of her hair in his wallet, and you can’t do that with today’s mania for living your life on a smartphone.
The cry of “get your wallet out!” will never be heard again in pubs if this vital accoutrement in a chap’s everyday life is lost. Let’s hear it for the leather wallet!
You can still buy them on the market for a few quid, and they last for years, lovingly handled as you count out the notes, with proper Yorkshire hesitation.
“Ow much?”
