The front page of the Guardian carried stories on the two burning issues of the day: the eruption of violence in Northern Ireland, and the endless negotiations over the UK joining the EEC. The chief comment piece was speculation about a forthcoming general election, with Labour behind in the polls. And a large advert from the Decimal Currency Board proclaimed the arrival that day of the “50 new penny piece”.
The 50p coin entered circulation on 14 October 1969, in the run-up to D-Day on 15 February 1971, when the UK finally abandoned shillings and pence and moved to a decimal currency.
The 50p coin was worth a lot then – indeed, more than any coin in circulation now. In real terms it was worth the equivalent of just over £8. Fifty years on, especially after rampaging inflation in the 1970s, the 50p is a shadow of its former self – it has shrunk in size and weight, but above all in value. Today’s 50p now only has the buying power of the old “tanner” – the small 6d piece.
Back then, when booze was relatively cheap, it really was possible to go for a night out and still have change from 50p. A 50p piece in 1969 could buy you three pints of mild or bitter (priced about two shillings, equal to 10p) while a tube fare on the newly opened Victoria line in London cost just 5d (2.2p). You’d still have enough left to buy a portion of chips and a copy of the Guardian, then priced at 6d (2.5p).
But what do these figures mean in real terms? Inflation since 1969 has been an astonishing 1,554%, with the fast-rising “cost of living” already a major headache for the government at the end of the 1960s. But incomes have also kept pace, rising moderately for men since then, but spectacularly for women.
Are we much better off than 50 years ago? Guardian Money searched prices of goods in 1969 and compared them with today. This shows that in real terms, food, clothes, electrical goods and holidays have collapsed in price and we can afford much more. But there has been a vast relative increase in the price of housing.
Wages
What is extraordinary about the wages data from the late 1960s is the huge gap between men and women. The ONS New Earnings Survey unfortunately gives no figures for 1969, but for 1970 it shows that the average full-time male worker was paid £30 a week, while a female full-time worker earned just £16.30. Annually, that worked out at £1,560 for men, which is equal to £24,050 today, but only £847.60 for women, equal to £13,068 today.
The figures suggest that real pay for the average male has risen by about a third over the last 50 years, but for women it has doubled. These figures, though, need to be taken with a large pinch of salt: they are averages, not the median figure, and reflect gross earnings rather than take-home pay after tax.
A look through the Guardian’s classified job adverts on the day the 50p was launched gives a snapshot of what real jobs paid. The Open University, which had just been established, was hiring professors at £3,780 a year (equal to £62,532 today), lecturers on a range of £1,240 to £2,850 (£20,153-£47,147), and secretaries on £756-£1,068 (£12,506-£17,668).
The Open University is still hiring – and its adverts suggest that real pay for academics has barely edged ahead in 50 years. It currently has an advert for a professor of economics on a range of £67,700-£75,800, while it pays lecturers £33,000 to £49,000. But the secretary job pays lots more in today’s money, with the OU advertising a role at £23,000 to £26,000.
Rampant sexism was a staple for job adverts in 1969, even in the Guardian. On that day, we carried an advert for a personnel officer at a new Courtaulds textile factory in Skelmersdale. The ad specified it had to be a man because Courtaulds was expanding its all-male labour force from 400 men to 1,200 men.
House prices
In real terms, house prices in 1969 were just a third of their level today. The average house sold for £4,312 – equal to £71,333 in today’s money, which would not even buy you a garage in north-west London.
However, if you look at the monthly cost of buying a home rather than the purchase price, the difference is not so large. In October 1969 the Building Societies Association recommended mortgage interest rate was 8.5%, while today loans can be found for below 2%. Women in 1969 were also treated as second-class borrowers, with the widespread belief that a male signee (husband or father) was required as a guarantor.
Food and clothes
One reason house prices were lower was that we all had less free money to spend after buying food. Chicken was about three times the price we pay today, while bread, eggs, coffee and sugar were about double the prices in supermarkets today.
But comparing like with like is made tough by the change in weights and measures since 1969, as Britain went metric in the 1970s.
What we are eating has also changed. While beef brisket, luncheon meat, dried prunes and corned beef appear in the ONS data for 1969, it’s not until 1996 that prices of avocado and grapes were collected. And instant coffee appears to have been a thoroughly modern new thing in 1969, having appeared in the ONS data for the first time a year earlier.
Clothes have also dramatically fallen in price in real terms since 1969. We were unable to obtain like-for-like prices of goods from then, but the fashion page of the Guardian that day gives an indication. We featured a black-and-white wool coat at £34 in Debenhams – equal to £562 today – and a men’s sheepskin coat at 38 guineas, equal to £662 today. Of the 670 coats in Debenhams’ online store today, the most expensive is £349.
Electrical and household goods
The Guardian of 14 October 1969 carried a story in the business pages on a major breakthrough for Granada Rentals – it would offer a colour TV for a rent of just £1 a week. That’s equal to £865 a year in today’s money, but all you got was one channel in colour (BBC2) while the other two channels, BBC1 and ITV, still broadcast in black and white.
Renting, even at those prices, was the only option for most people because colour TV sets cost astronomical prices. Our story said that a 19-inch set cost 199 guineas – nearly £4,000 in today’s money – at Currys, and Dennis Curry was reporting that sales had been “rather restrained”. The Granada Rentals deal was for an 11-inch TV set.
Not that there was a lot to watch in colour. Broadcasting on BBC2 began at 7pm that evening, with rugby league coverage of Hull v Wigan the primetime offering.
Only half of Britain’s homes owned a refrigerator in 1969, dishwashers were almost unheard of, and microwaves were in only a tiny number of homes. And without the likes of Ikea, home furnishings cost far more in real terms then than they do today.
Culture and going out
If you fancy going to see Fiddler on the Roof, now on at London’s Playhouse theatre, seat prices for a typical October matinee range from £20 to £145. Back in 1969, an advert in the Guardian showed that Fiddler on the Roof was also playing, but at Her Majesty’s theatre. And the prices? There was a special offer of Wednesday matinees at 5s to 25s – or 25p to £1.25. Adjusting for inflation, that means seats were going for just £4 to a top price of £20. West End theatre appears to have quadrupled in price in real terms since the 1960s.
In Oxford, the Sadler’s Wells opera was on tour, charging from 6/ to 22/6 (30p to £1.12) to see Madam Butterfly at the Playhouse. That’s equal to £4.80 to £18.50 today. Currently Macbeth is booking at the Playhouse, priced at £10 to £30, so real prices appear to have doubled.
In the pubs, we found Guinness at 1/9d (9p), and mild and bitter at 10p. Adjusted for today, beer prices have doubled in real terms. Mateus Rosé was the most popular wine in the world then: the Queen drank it, and Jimi Hendrix was photographed swigging it out of the bottle. How times change.
How prices have changed
Item Price in 1969 Price adjusted for inflation Actual price today
Average wage (male, full time) £1,560 £24,050 £31,834
Average wage (female, full time) £847 £13,068 £26,103
Average house price £4,312 £71,333 £215,910
New car (Mini Mk II) £595.10s.0d £9,860 £16,195 (Mini 3dr hatch)
New car (Ford Capri) £890 £14,723 £22,160 (Ford Fiesta ST)
Petrol (litre) 7.3p 120p 128p
Fresh whole chicken 41p £6.80 £2.80
Loaf of white bread 8p £1.32 59p
Bag of sugar 8p £1.32 69p
Milk (one pint) 4.4p 73p 50p
Eggs (dozen, large) 20.2p £3.34 £1.89
Instant coffee 21.8p £3.60 £1.89
Pint of bitter 10p £1.65 £3.70
Colour television (19 inch) £240 £3,970 £99
Package holiday (two weeks Benidorm, August, pp) £78 £1,290 £950
Flight (London to Tokyo, economy) £325 £5,376 £900
First-class stamp 2.2p 36.5p 70p
Tube fare (one mile) 2.2p 36.5p £2.40
Electricity (per kwh) 0.78p 12.9p 14.4p
Notes: House price data from Nationwide building society. Wage data from ONS New Earnings Survey (1970 – figures for 1969 unavailable) and Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) (2019). Food prices from ONS 1914-2004 series, prices today taken from current Tesco website.
Is your 50p worth a mint?
There is one 50p coin possibly jangling in your pocket today that is worth a lot more than its face value. But it’s not the first version of the coin minted in 1969.
The Royal Mint puts 120m new 50p coins into circulation on 14 October 1969, which at the time was the biggest ever issue of a new coin – giving it almost zero rarity value.
On eBay, 1969 50p coins can be bought for as little as 75p. Given that 50 years ago the 50p coin had the buying power of £8 today, it has been a pretty poor investment.
The 50p coin to watch out for is the more recent 2009 issue that carries a picture of Kew Gardens on the reverse. Just 210,000 of the coins were minted to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Botanic Gardens, compared with 19.9m Peter Rabbit 50p coins last year.
According to coin dealers, the Kew Gardens 50p coins can fetch £70-£80. But, beware, there are two types – the “circulated” one is much rarer than the shinier “uncirculated” coins, which only pick up about £10-£20 on eBay.
Keep an eye out for the 50p coins issued to celebrate the London Olympics in 2012. Dominic Chorney at coin dealers Baldwin’s says some are worth £3-£4, depending on the sport featured.
Chorney adds that despite the move towards a cashless society – the Royal Mint did not produce any 1p or 2p coins last year, neither did it make any new £2 coins – coin collecting remains popular, with record prices at auction for the rarest items.
In January this year, a five guinea “Vigo”’ coin minted in 1703 fetched the highest price ever paid for a British coin. It sold at Baldwin’s auction in New York for $1.08m (£876,000).
