Young gun Guy Kelly and old hand Christopher Howse debate the growing scarcity of tangible currency

Is the generation gap a hard border or something more porous? One might assume that the older generation has fixed ideas about the way we live now – that e-scooters and mindfulness apps are not worth entertaining and that the greenbelt and opera must be defended at all costs. Similarly, millennials are surely all in favour of plant-based milks and drill as a form of music. 

Not so fast... The Telegraph’s own Guy Kelly and Christopher Howse, both deft wordsmiths and of very different generations, are here to conduct a weekly study of modern life. What they like, hate, fight over and agree on may surprise you. This week, they consider the merits of a cashless society.

A piece of fossil-ised behaviour in Venice is to join a handful of people waiting for the traghetto to ferry them across the Grand Canal. The convention for the short journey in the large gondola is to stand up, which takes some doing. The fare of 50c is left on the gunwale.

If you have more travel time and £1.40 to spare, a similar arrangement applies at King’s Lynn, where the expanse of the Ouse is so great to seaward that it looks from the low-set boat as though it is uphill.

Either of these performances is good practice for paying Charon the ferryman’s fare, which he takes from your mouth, to row you on your last journey over the Styx. PayPal is not accepted.

I am trying to say that resisting the so-called cashless society is not just a wise move to stop the state taxing your assets as they lie virtually in the bank. (Before you know it, the authorities will take the chance to apply the sort of social credit points that allow some Chinese people to catch high-speed trains and not others.) I am saying that cash – coins – is more fundamental than accountancy to human life, like bread, fire, door-locks, horses, shoes or song.

I don’t mind credit. When I was a little boy we used to get cheese, bacon, biscuits and sugar towards the end of the month on credit from the grocer’s, which delivered. The boxes in which the order, on tick, came were my favourite toys for a day, as ships or houses. There aren’t any grocers now – not that kind where they know you. But there are some things that have always seemed wrong to pay for except in cash: flowers, matches, window-cleaning, newspapers, beer, barbers, taxis.

It might be that there’s something wrong with the money we have at the moment. Eight big, heavy half-crowns used to make up a pound – weighty counters in an abacus of currency that was worth counting up. Now, little bronze pence and tiny silvery coins like pearl buttons just tell you they are not worth having.

Yet any scrap of shrapnel is better than a card waved with a uniform bleep over a machine that might be syphoning from your account twopence or £100.

As is often the case, it’s the Prince of Wales I feel sorry for. Throughout his life, Charles must have been looking forward to the fact that one day, one day, we genuflecting subjects would walk around with his scuffed, crumpled face in our pockets, prizing every coin and note, wishing we had more of him to spend.

We’d toss him to decide things, and post him to our grandchildren on their birthdays. We’d hold him up to the light, and feed him to machines for a Twix. We’d use him to unveil scratch cards, giddily count him at the bookies, and fill holdalls with him when making entirely above-board charity donations at lunches. We would do this, just as we’ve done the same with his mother… wouldn’t we?

Well no, probably not now. Along with having an empire and being popular, it may be that for Charles it’s simply too late to enjoy that particular spoil of kingship. Cash is becoming a rare thing indeed. So rare, that if somebody pulls out more than two fivers from their wallet at any one time, somebody else will say, ‘Blimey, Norman, how is the crack cocaine market these days?’

On the condition that any street thieves reading this look away now, I will admit that I still enjoy the safety of always having £10 on my person at any one time, lest I ever come across those unsteadying words: ‘Cash Only’, or there’s some kind of cyber attack and I really need a drink.

Of course, ‘exchanging bits of paper and metal for goods and services’ should be on the list of things the human race ought to have evolved to do without, by this point, like physical passports and needing to defecate. And yet cash is just nice to have and to hold.

There is no magic in a lisping child feeling under their pillow for the tooth fairy’s deposit, only to find a note saying, ‘Cheers for the tooth, I have Monzo’d you 50p x,’ just as there is surely no joy in discovering a buried chest of Bitcoin.

Going cashless is easier, yes. It’s cleaner, sure. But if we really want to value money, not just move it around, we’ll mint for a while longer. Or do it for poor old Charles, anyway. It’s not as if anyone’s buying stamps.

We rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism.

We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future.

Thank you for your support.

Visit our adblocking instructions page.