I almost didn’t stop to pick it up, well I had my reasons. My
back was aching and really a penny doesn’t buy anything, I don’t think even
penny chews are a penny any more. I hear that the Bank of England is thinking
of taking them out of circulation just like they did with the dear old new half
penny back in 1984, funny – I’d almost forgotten all about them, they were only
around for 13 years.
Besides just how much does a penny cost to make? Well, in raw materials - about a quid for a sheet of enriched
alloy. Then there's engravers - £8.90 per hour at a rate of ten pennies per
hour - that's 89 pence. Then there's cutting and hardening - metallurgist rate
of £15 per hour at a rate of three man hours for 100 pennies - that's 45pence.
Then there's inspection, £20 per hour for ten pennies an hour - that's £2 a
penny. Then there's anti-forgery department inspections - £30 per hour at a
rate of ten pennies per hour - that's £3 per penny. Then security van dispatch
at £1 per £1,000,000 per mile, at roughly 60 miles to all the first-point of
source financial societies - that's £60. So that's approximately £67.34.
Inflation... inflation... inflation.
Inflation... inflation... inflation.
And what if someone saw me picking my penny off the pavement?
I’m not that close to bankruptcy yet and although there seems to be no shame in
declaring oneself bankrupt these days, but picking up stray pennies off the dirty ground is probably
viewed with disdain by pretty much everyone - even big issue sellers.
Anyway, back to my penny… so I walked past it and then, a
dozen yards down the road, I heard it calling to me and I had to turn back (reasons or not) worried about tempting the fates. I’m like that you see –
always worried about running out of luck, always looking to get a little rubbed
off on me. “See a penny and pick it up, all day long you’ll have good luck.”
Well good, but I’m sure the opposite applies and not falling to one knee (as I
had to do) to pick it up would surely bring me bad luck and I don’t need more
of that.
So I picked up the penny, slipped it into my pocket, and
carried along my merry way with a spring in my step, energised by my newly
acquired penny’s good luck.
Lucky me. It wasn’t until later that I heard the news.
It was back in 1976 that I first heard the Queen of Disco
telling me that she loved to love me, baby, baby - well maybe not me but
someone; Giorgio Moroder perhaps, he was producing her in Germany . In
terms of my own love life I had recently been left distraught by my very own Queen, Titania, who simply vanished into the air one day leaving me all on my ownsome. Quivers and
shakes followed and to regain some sense of normality and reality I scurried
back to my parent’s home in Devon . With my
dole cheques - that long hot summer - I bought round, black, vinyl discs - records we
called them back then and along with the Sibelius I also bought I Feel Love.
After that I was smitten, a lifelong fan of the Queen of
Disco, but now she was no more.
I took out my lucky penny when I heard the news, looking at
it I remembered that long ago way back when and how the pounding pulsing beat
and Donna’s soaring voice had made me so happy during such a sad long ago time,
making me want to smile and dance and how eventually I had – Oh, I feel love, I
feel love, I feel love, I feel love, I feel love.
Perhaps I was lucky after all. Sleep well my Queen.
Sharon Taylor commented on Facebook: "I have my own personal memories of her music, she was part of my life and although she has died young I hope her memory and music will still live on and she will not be forgotten. If she can achieve that then she will achieve more than I, so I am not sad for her, but happy that her life had meaning."
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