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What is all that
racquet?
There
are really only two things on the mind in this part of SW19 for two weeks in
the summer: will the sun shine for more than an hour, and how much will they
be charging for strawberries and cream this year at the All England
Club? There is also of course, some
tennis.
Things
have changed a lot since Martins’ day, when, occupying a very special place
on Centre Court, the sub-Branch is open from midday to the close of play on
each day of this major World Championship event. The staff at 92 Wimbledon
High Street must be glad to have somewhere to hide for the remaining fifty
weeks of the year! |
In Service: 1930 until late
1980s
Image © Barclays Ref 0030-3231
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Wimbledon
Centre Court must surely have been a prize that Barclays had had its eye on for
some time – for a principally Northern Bank to establish itself first in this
most Home Counties of settings (and of course, Barclays’ natural territory)
might well have put certain noses out of joint so to speak, so the merger of
martins and Barclays brings with it the chance for a new champion to take the
reigns. For more than ten years, the prestigious official Wimbledon Programme
includes Martins Bank’s half-page advertisment for its Branch on Centre
Court, and from 1969 onwards, Barclays has the advantage… At a time when both
sexism and elitism can still be used to sell a product, we can see the change
from 1962’s gentle drawing to the 1969 advertisement - designed to entice
wealthy, most probably male customers, to partake of a little banking with
their tennis…
In 1966, during the hugely successful “Martins go to extremes
to be helpful” advertising campaign, a Centre Court sub Branch ad with the
title “’vantage server” appears in two slightly different editions. The
bowler-hatted Manager, who can be seen in action across much of Martins’
advertising at this time, (counting chickens, carrying hods of bricks,
digging ditches and even herding cows), takes the part of Wimbledon Umpire to
see fair play and offer Banking services! The first example refers just to Centre
Court as the location of the Branch, but the second talks of the
branch being “here in the North Hall” which is the actual part
of Centre court in which the Bank is situated. The second advertisement also gives opening
hours which differ by half an hour to those shown in the first…
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