WHEN I saw that Andrew Smith MP is backing the campaign for more free ATMs (April 12), it made me think back to a time when things were quite different.

For most of her working life my wife was what was known as a wages clerk, her duties being to check what work employees had carried out during the past week so that she could calculate their wages, how much tax etc, was to be deducted and then go to the bank, or arrange for someone to go, collect the necessary amount of money to make up the wage packets and then hand over the packages in what was known as cash in hand.

With improvements to computers it was realised that it would be easier and cheaper for the computer to work out the wages and then pay them directly into the employee’s bank. At that time few had a bank account but, even so, the employer would do his best to arrange for all employees to have a bank account.

In the past, banks had catered mostly for business or the rich, but now had to provide facilities for the majority. This resulted in bank branches springing up almost everywhere but that wasn’t the end of the story, because most people were in work when the banks were open and, naturally, there were demands that the banks open in the evenings and at weekends.

I worked for the firm that was asked to produce a machine that could dispense cash at any time and so the ATM was born.

With the spread of ATMs, banks no longer opened at times outside banking hours and many of the small branches closed.

In many ways ATMs saved the banks a great deal of money but banks, being greedy, attempted to charge for ATM service but, in the end, found it more profitable to let private companies install ATMs and let them make a charge.

DERRICK HOLT Fortnam Close Headington Oxford