Green Shield Stamps

The scheme was introduced in 1958 by Richard Tompkins, who had noticed the success of the long-established Sperry & Hutchinson Green Stamps in America.

[1][2] In the early 1960s, Green Shield built a new headquarters office block in Station Road, Edgware, Middlesex (a suburb on the north-west London fringe).

But Cohen was a fan of pile it high and sell it cheap, and in the mid-1970s Tesco faced cost problems associated with not integrating its stores.

A decision was made to abandon Green Shield stamps, saving £20m a year and helping to finance price reductions.

Aimed at company drivers, who didn't care about the cost of fuel, competing stations began to offer double, triple, quadruple and even greater multiples of stamps.

British comedy rock group Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band references a woman who runs a fictional “Green Shield Library” in the song “Piggy Bank Love,” written by Neil Innes on their 1967 debut album “Gorilla.” Jethro Tull, another progressive rock band, also mentioned Green Shield stamps in the song "Broadford Bazaar", which was about a town on the Scottish Isle of Skye which band leader Ian Anderson lived near: "We'll take pounds, francs, and dollars from the well-heeled, And stamps from the Green Shield".

Nikki Sudden wrote a song called "Green Shield Stamps" for his last official album The Truth Doesn't Matter.

There is also an acoustic solo version from the Cake Shop, New York, on 24 March 2006, recorded two days before his unexpected passing.

Don't strain your eyes trying to read them, though, because I shall be telling you exactly what comes next; in any case, these rather fanciful titles that we print on the programmes bear no relation to what we're going to sing.