Buried treasure

Talking of stuffing money in mattresses, we should remember that this was an attractive option for some people no more than a couple of generations ago.

I must have been about 16 or 17 years old when my maternal grandmother died, aged about 90. She was born in the 19th century with attitudes to match. She really did have an aspidistra in her best room with pictures of angels on the wall.

As far as I knew she didn't have a bean but when she died there was a share out for the grandchildren. I was given £150 in fusty one pound notes that had been buried in a biscuit tin in my Uncle Dennis's council allotment greenhouse.

All those years I had grubbed around in the soil among the brassicas and the chrysanthemums (he was known for his chrysanths), never realising that hidden among their roots was a box of cash. There was probably a thousand pounds which would have been worth far more had it been invested in a building society.

But my grandmother didn't trust banks because she had lived through the Wall Street Crash and the great depression. How silly. Being a sensible young man I took the money and bought a car with it. The car, a Hillman Imp, was constantly breaking down and absorbed all my spare cash. It broke down so many times that in the end I had to call a scrap yard to tow it away. There's probably a parable in all this but I can't think of one.