I don’t hold any strong views on the cheque issue. Scrap them or save them, it’s all the same to me.

But like most people these days, I don’t carry a cheque book around with me.

I do have one somewhere, pushed to the back of a drawer for those rare occasions when only ‘snail mail’ will do.

So imagine my surprise when I went to the bank to request a reference from them.

“There’s an £11.75 fee,” I was told.

I duly pulled out my debit card and handed it over.

“No, you have to pay by cheque,” I was told.

I explained that I didn’t have my cheque book, but she insisted, so I suggested a banker’s cheque, only to be told that that would cost me another tenner or so.

In the end I had no option but to drive all the way home and get my cheque book.

I returned 40 minutes later.

“Who do I make the cheque payable to?” I asked.

“The Royal Bank of Scotland,” she replied.

Patience spent, Brinscall.