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 In the 1960s the opening hours of some of Martins
Bank’s smaller Branches and sub-Branches are quite generous compared with
those of today. Many, including self-accounting sub branches such as Lytham,
offer full opening hours, which includes Saturday mornings. Lytham is
one of a number of branches that are scattered along the Fylde Coast, which
makes banking with Martins in this area, such a convenient prospect. For more
Martins branches that “like to be beside the seaside”, why not visit our
pages for BLACKPOOL and MORECAMBE branches.
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In Service:
1959 until 17 May 2019
Branch Images © Barclays Ref: 0030/1769
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In the meantime we will join Martins
Bank Mazagine as they visit Lytham early in 1959, not long after the branch
opens for business for the first time…
  It is some years since we last paid an
official visit to any of our branches along the Fylde coast and the occasion
of the present visit was to see our new branch at Lytham. The opening of a
new branch in Lancashire is quite an event nowadays, as our coverage of the
county is fairly comprehensive, but although there has been a good case for
opening one in Lytham for twenty years or more, for a number of good reasons
(among them a world war) it has not been possible to do so until now. We were sorry not to be
able to pay our visit while Mr. C. Spencer, the recently retired Manager at
St. Annes branch, was still in harness, for to have a branch at Lytham was
one of his dreams and we were glad that the opening took place just before
his retirement so that he was able to be its first Manager. Although Lytham
is a full book-keeping branch it comes under the control of the Manager of
St. Annes branch. We called at St. Annes
first to meet the new Manager, Mr. H. S. Mellor, an old friend who, for the
past seven years, has been Manchester District Inspector. This branch, which
could be made very attractive by contemporary standards, will ultimately have
to be stripped of all its present fittings in order to provide for
mechanisation. The contrast is all the more striking on going as we did to
the new branch, for a wonderful job has been made of the office at Lytham.
The photograph published in our last issue of the green marble exterior, with
detachable washable fascia lettering, really gives no hint at all of the
beauty of the interior fittings and design.
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 Image © Barclays
Ref: 0030-1769
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Image © Martins Bank Archive Collections
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To have such a branch in a
part of the country where the Bank has been so long established is like a
breath of fresh air even on the breezy Lancashire coast. The Clerk-in-Charge is Mr.
A. Burt Briggs. who knows the coast and its problems well, although
he has been in Manchester since 1955.
Prior to the last war he spent several years at St. Annes, and after the
war he had nine years at Blackpool. He and his wife are well known in the
district and have identified themselves with the local activities in a number
of ways. During the war, Mr. Briggs was a prisoner of war of the Japs, in the
same camp as our Brigadier Toosey. Mr. R. Williamson is next in command and
the gentle sex is represented by Miss D. J. Evans. Mr. Mellor was Sub Manager at St. Annes from 1946 until
1952 and both Mr. Williamson and Miss Evans have had several years at the
same branch. With the nucleus of accounts which have naturally been
transferred to the new branch the staff feel quite at home in their new
surroundings. We were very pleased to meet
Mrs. Mellor and to have the pleasure of taking them both to lunch. Before her
marriage she was a Nursing Sister and her experiences in the Far East were
such as to make one wonder all over again at the resilience and fortitude of
the human spirit.
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