WHERE MONEY IS MADE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 30 July 1929, Page 5

WHERE MONEY IS MADE

A RETICENT VILLAGE THE WATERMARK SECRET In the quiet village of Overton, Hants., are Britain's secret money factories. Hedged around by barbed wire, guarded day and night by' a special police force, and entered by spike-topped gates ivith prison-like grills, here are made the Banknotes for which the whole nation scrambles in this modern world of commerce and industry. None but employees may enter the precincts of the money factories without a signed permit from Sir William Portal, head of the firm, who lives in a stately mansion nearby.. Sightseers, are politely turned away by the police. Lingerers are regarded with a suspicious eye.; For 200 years the Portal family have been secretly fashioning the paper that is so all-important. It is .made, not only for England, but for other countries. The paper, with its vital watermarks, is taken to London, under a strong guard, for the final printing process, before it is launched on the money market. Overton itself, served by a little branch railway line from Basingstoke, is a village that time-has passed by. The stench of petrol has barely penetrated there; plough horses stare with wide incredulous eyes at a stray charabanc. ..-.-.•; ■ ;•/..!•'• | ■ Yet it is here* that they make the money that the world clutches at so greedily. Workers at.the money factory travel from all parts of the. countryside to this rare beauty-spot. But it is difficult to induce them to talk about money. It is almost the last thing they think about. To them it is merely paper they are making.