Well done Barclays. I doubt I'd get that from HSBC.

Jerome,
I also expected to have a major problem cashing a $10 cheque or check from the USA last year so I just didn't bother.

Now I discover that I could have become £6.20 richer, as it turns out, but I've decided I'm happier keeping my cheque or check as a souvenir. I also kept the accompanying letter and even the envelope; the handwriting on it was too beautiful to throw it away!

Jayne

PS. John, likewise with TwatWest.

I gather from my daughter that Lloyds is good. And would have been better if it hadn't been forced by the bloody Labour Government into a tie up with disaster.

Do I gather that more than one submission is within the rules? If so I think I might also offer them this.

CHILD’S PLAY

That world of “tuppence coloureds, penny plains”
lit with great lines the darkest winter day -
so Glasgow sabbath Grans were borne away
to haunt the blasted heath, and damson’s stains
of homemade jam incarnadined the pains
of cardboard castellated murder. May
this age's children’s children live to play
past Syria's harried heights where winter rains
thunder on cardboard camps and lightning leaves
etched images of exile. May yet suns
of inspiration furnish them with sheaves
of plays to plead their case with furnace breath.
Let’s learn, the longer bloody drama runs,
more than our one half world enacts its death.

If The Oldie doesn't like titles, I can't write without finding one - albeit usually after the event.

You can enter as many as you like, Nigel. And you can use a nom de plume. William Wallace perhaps?

Yes they would. Because you have to include your real name for the cheque.

Alas, Brian - quite right. I'll correct it here but too late to do so for The Oldie. Perhaps, as a cover name, Blind Harry might be more appropriate!

The rain, thunder and lightning - apart from recalling the miserable plight of Syrian refugees - and "our one half world" also tie the reflection to the memory of childhood productions of Macbeth in a cardboard theatre.

No, they wouldn't, John, because "someone else's name" means a real person (as opposed to an acknowledged pseudonym) who receives the cheque in his name, cashes it, and hands over the dosh - or else. (Holbrook, you have been warned.)

Nigel, I'd picked up "blasted heath", "incarnadined", and "castellated murder", but I missed the reference to "In thunder, lightning, or in rain".

I'm still struggling with the last five lines, but perhaps the penny will drop sooner or late. Or have they abolished the penny?