For several days we were led to believe that dark forces were at work. The closure of Nigel Farage’s bank account in Coutts suggested sinister events, not least because Farage himself, former Ukip executive, presenter at GB News, pointed to a conspiracy. In a six-minute video, he spoke of an anti-Brexit banking industry imposing “political persecution” on him. Losing your bank account was like being labeled a “non-person.” The poor boy was driven into exile by a cabal of nameless enemies in the shadows. Think of Napoleon, Casanova, the Dalai Lama…
But now we know the truth. Farage was fired by Coutts because he simply did not have the funds to make him a suitable Coutts client. How the mighty fall. Coutts was the banker to royalty for centuries, one of the oldest banks in the world and in his own words: “banker of the best and brightest for over three hundred years”. And it’s not you Nigel. What an amazing humiliation. I do not know. I received the Coutts boot about 25 years ago.
Now to hold an account you need to invest around £1m with them or have around £3m in savings. More than two decades ago, the requirements were considerably less onerous. You had to have around £2,000 in credit.
For me, it was unheard of. I mean, we only had overdrafts in the banks, right? If there were a couple thousand dollars around, you’d spend it. The beers were on you.
But the official letter addressed to me still stung and came out of nowhere.
It was written with charm. Of course, what an honor it had been for the bank to serve me, after a long family line of accounts. But now, with enormous regret, without sufficient funds in accordance with the current operating mandate of the institution, I would be forced to take my glorious business elsewhere.
How dare they, I stammered. I was now officially labeled by the Queen’s Banker as New Poor. After all this time. Yes, my family had done business with Coutts for a long time, but the bank looked after me too. In Eton they even had a branch on the High Street, keen to foster relationships with leaders and the wealthy elite of the future. And how I repaid these first openings.
My school days were, for me, like today, a cashless society. I did not have money. But I had a Coutts checkbook. A grandly gray little booklet in which lay a path to riches, or at least sweets in the school candy store, Rowlands.
I wrote checks for a small bag of Cola Fizzes, checks for a snowflake, for a can of Coke. Once I was old enough to drink at the school bar, Tap, I wrote checks for a pint of Newcastle Brown Ale and a crab roll. I’ve written checks for as little as 12p. And I know this because every check I wrote was returned to me every month along with my bank statements. The idea was that you checked the amount against the statement. Of course, I did no such thing, just marveling at the miracles the Coutts checkbook performed.
Exactly what the Coutts staff must have thought, I can only imagine. After I left school, I wrote checks left, right, and center. My brother and I discovered a new contest to see which illegible handwriting would a) work at the retailer where the check was written and b) be honored by the bank.
I have old checks that are literally totally unreadable squiggles. Where my signature was nothing but a flurry of scratched lines. But it worked at our favorite restaurant, Kensington Place. And drinks were exchanged for my Coutts checks at 151, a nightclub on King’s Road in Chelsea.
And yet, the bank honored them and returned them for my records. Until someone realized that this hilarious joke had gone on long enough, that the paltry income I received as a young journalist did not match the expense output nor the suggestion that I was destined for tycoon status.
So they wrote to me, fired me and my meager earnings, and I took my misfortune to Barclays. I said goodbye to the bank, those checkbooks, and the chance to walk into some of their fabulous branches – including a large, imposing building on the Strand and a chic but tiny one on Fleet Street.
I was heartbroken. My late father had done business with them. He had a unique relationship with money, a kind of hope that belied reality. Many of my happy memories of him are of us wandering Fleet Street before a happy lunch at El Vino’s. First there was a visit to Coutts, where I was always struck by the warmth and friendliness of the staff and my dad – despite the dire state of his finances – always seemed to walk away with more money in pocket than upon entering. And then we would have a nice lunch.
I would miss those managers too. Mine was a Mr Blundell. I could feel him tearing his hair out as he wrote: pleading unsuccessfully about my unauthorized overdrafts. I called him once in desperation, having run out of money while traveling through Europe. “Oh Mr Sitwell,” moaned the poor man. “What are you doing in Budapest? Your account status!
Nigel, I feel your pain. The ignominy of having revealed that one is not a multimillionaire. Yet Coutts’ accolades rather faded when it merged with NatWest in 2000. Very high street. Then it got a whole lot fruitier waving cards and checks issued by companies like Hoare’s or Child & Co. But, today, I don’t suppose they would even accept the sons of billionaires to issue checks for two Curly Wurlies and a fruit salad. .
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