WHERE MONEY IS MADE

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 84, 14 August 1929, Page 2

WHERE MONEY IS MADE

j A RETICENT VILLAGE. THE WATERMARK SECRET. In the! quiet village? «f Hants., are Britain's money factories: Hedged around' fy bstfbed wire, guarded day and night by a, special police- force, and entered; by spiketqpped gates" with prison-like grills, here are made the banknotes for which the. whole nation scrambles in this modern world of commerce and industry. None but employees may enter the precincts of the money factories without a signed permit from Sir William Portal, headl of the firm who lives in a stately mansion nearby. Sightseers are politely turned away by the police. Lingerers are regarded with a suspicions eye. For 200 years the Portal! family I have been, secretly fashioning the paper that is so all-important. It is made, not only for England, but for other countries. The paper, with its vital watermarks, is taken to London n\jder a strong guard, for the final printing process, before it is launched on the money market. Overton itself, ixerveTi" tiy a little branch railway line from Basingstoke, is a village, tba ttime n~as passed by. The stench of petrol has barely penetrated there; plough horses starei wide, incredulous eyes at a stray charabanc., i' Yet it i.s here that they make the money that the world clutches at so greedily. . Workers at the money factory travel from, all part*; of the noun try-side to tliis rare beauty-spot. But it is difficult to induce them to talk about rooiiev. Tt~is almost the Irst thing tlmy think about. To tliem it is merely piper they are making.