People Are Starting To Use Pawnbrokers More To Raise Money From Their Video Machines And Games

Video recorders and computer games are being pawned for loans, besides more traditional valuables.

The pawnbroker’s shop sign of three hanging gold balls is displayed outside H.W. Renall, one of two thriving pawnbrokers at Southend-on-Sea, Essex. Standing by the shop windows, Anglia TV reporter Stephen Cole says that even in 1984, the age of the microchip and the video recorder, people still run short of money. The pawnbrokers are doing record business as people pawn their jewellery, their videos and computer games. Shots of signs displayed around the shop advertising services, sales and loans. Women look at the array of rings in the shop window. Sign for Member of the National Pawnbrokers’ Association. Sitting at the counter behind security bars, shop manager Derek Gaisford says they have been very busy, particularly selling jewellery before Christmas, and then arranging loans for pawned items when people are short of funds in January. The reporter asks if people are embarrassed to come into a pawnbroker’s? Mr Gaisford says no, because the shop is also selling jewellery to customers, and the room where pawns and loans are negotiated is private with clients discreetly buzzed in. Asked what kinds of people need this service, he says it’s not so much the poorer people as business people who need cash, for example when the banks are closed or on a Saturday when they need £500 - £600 instantly. Scenes of the handwritten pages on an old ledger recording loans made in the 1940s. This short video was made to be shown in a news story on Anglia Television early evening news / magazine programme About Anglia.

Keywords

Pawnbrokers / Loans / Jewellery / Videos / Computer games / Jewellery shops