£.s.d (Pounds stirling, shillings and pence) multiplication

[jaybelnz]

Thank you KHP, I should have googled first shouldn't I!  🙀😜

I'm very lucky, I have a double sided tape measure, the old Imperial on one side, metric on the other.  Most of the old patterns I used when my children were small, are not metric, so the double sided tape was and is very handy, when sewing for my grandchildren. One side is black and the other is white.  Really good.

The same with baking and cooking, most of my recipes are pretty old too, so also Imperial measurements - my kitchen scales have both, and so do my bathroom scales,  so no probs with that either, although I always leave it on the stones and pounds option. 

[andrewalston]

I must be a sad old groat.

Martin

No. I'm sure you are worth more than 4d!

The coins were long gone before anyone here was born, but a lot of us were taught how much they used to be worth.

[CarolA3]

I'm 26 and it is crazy that a system like this even existed in the first place. My Nan has tried explaining it to me many times and I just do not get it haha.

But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.

http://www.montypython.net/scripts/4york.php

Carol

[jaybelnz]

That was so funny Carol!  Thanks for posting the link! 👍👍

[Berlin-Bob]

A small footnote to this discussion:

My mother fled from Austria to England in 1939 and was sent, with other refugee children to an english boarding school.

Her experience was, that the english kids were much, much better at mental arithmetic than the continental european refugees, precisely due to the british imperial weights and measures system and the constant practice in school ("if 5 pound (lb.)  4 oz. of X costs  £2 3s. 4d. how much does 7 lb 13 oz. cost ?") and in daily life.

BUT....
the refugees were much better at languages, as they were more likely to have crossed more borders  and had contact with more "foreigners" than the "insular" british kids.

Bob

[Melbell]

In the old days, when we had to sing patriotic songs at school, who else sang this?

"Rule Britannia! Two tanners make a bob
And three make one-and-six
And four, two bob."

Does it make sense to you at all, KentishChris?!!

Melbell

[suey]

I'm pretty sure that you can be number dyslexic, maths may as well be Japanese to me  . 

Not sooo bad as I was at school, I've now had years of practice of adding up and taking away etc.     I never sat any exam in maths.  I remember my poor mum trying to teach me long division when still in primary school.  I've never had occasion to use it since.

I did do the op's original calculation and came up with the correct answers, but all done on a calculator not by brain power, which it would have been back in the day.

[groom]

I'm pretty sure that you can be number dyslexic, maths may as well be Japanese to me  . 

Yes you can, it's Dyscalculia.

[Brewins girl]

Thank you all for your help, & especially for explaining how you arrived at the final figures. It was reassuring that my revised calculations for the lower figure was correct.

Cuisenaire rods! I remember using those with men & women with learning difficulties a looooong time ago.

I chuckled at Jaybelnz's story about the dragon - I am so glad you made her wait!

My original request for help has produced a fascinating thread - thank you all for your anecdotes.