I welcome Sammy Gecsoyler’s article (My week of only using cash: could a return to notes and coins change my life?, 10 February) while noting that he is young, employed and living in a city, and that he commented about the older cash-payers seen in charity shops.
I am one of the many who live rurally. We rely on access to cash. Our lives still include paying small sums – £2.50 for entry and a coffee at our many village societies (open to all), or £5 for lunch provided fortnightly by volunteers – and varying sums to sponsor fundraising or village facilities, or small amounts to travel on our community bus.
Sammy mentioned how using cash brought more face-to-face contact: such interactions are increasingly rare in our current busy lives, but they are a great benefit to communities of all types. He also drew attention to the gain from using cash and realising how much items cost – and then considering how necessary or otherwise each item was. We all need any help we can find in these times of high living costs.
Val Major
Bristol
The article shines a welcome light on the dangers of digital apartheid, denying people the option to use cash even for basic public services.
A striking example is that it costs £10 simply to buy an Oyster card. This is not a deposit, but a charge for a piece of plastic that presumably is made for pennies. Denying people the right to use cash on London transport, then profiteering through the sale of Oyster cards at an obscene profit margin, is cynical and exploitative. In Athens, for example, as in other European capital cities, the equivalent loadable public transport card is free of charge.
Christopher Ruane
Lanark
Sammy Gecsoyler chose to use only cash for day-to-day spending for a week, and his resulting article was quite lighthearted. But for those who, for whatever reason, use only cash as the norm, it’s not amusing at all to be so often turned away from shops, cafes, cultural venues and so on.
Albert Beale
London
