Access - Your Flexible Friend

A newspaper advertisement for Bejam, December 1981. Nobody in my very working class neighbourhood even owned a freezer in 1981. Seems incredible now.

From the Sunday People, April 1985.

Here's Access and Money in another advertisement featured in the Radio Times, May 1985.

The blurb went: 

Go shopping without leaving home.

Nowadays you can pick up a phone and a bargain from the comfort of your own armchair. And using Access makes it even easier.Book your holiday over the phone with Access. Everything from rail and air tickets, to hotel bookings and car hire.

Many theatres, cinemas, pop concerts and sporting events accept Access over the phone, too - quote your name, number and address and that's it. What could be simpler? Or more convenient.

Credit cards seemed like something from the Planet Zog to me and my pals and family back then. You paid cash or bought from a mail order catalogue. There was no other way in our world.

I used to feel sorry for Money in the ads - he always seemed to end up flustered and out of sorts - he had an irritating voice, too.

Poor little git.

I never even used a cash point machine until some time after the UK's first debit card, Barclays Connect, was issued on June 3 1987. That sparked a revolution. Suddenly, plastic money and cash point machines were not just for those well off enough to own a credit card. Within nine months, Barclays was issuing its one millionth Connect Card.

I was a Barclays Connect man from around 1988 onwards.

Sorry, Access.