In doing my accounts, I have discovered that not only I, but everybody else is dilatory in cashing cheques, for a number of reasons. We obtain our loose change from a hole in the wall, and consequently rarely go the bank. The amounts that the cheques carry are often small, money presents to small children, discounts, and a small payments in moieties. In my case the bank is over 5 miles away, in a part of town I rarely visit. I have also discovered that even large companies are not prepared to accept a credit card payment without a service charge, and therefore the tendency is going towards using a debit card, presupposing your account is not in the red. Clearly this change in policy is a by-product of the credit crunch, and the practice of so many people not to honour their debts. If you receive a cheque and for some reason cannot, or wont take it to the bank, one is then forced to write a covering letter and affix a stamp and take it to the post, all of which is another waste of time. As I have said repeatedly, the majority are penalized by the misdemeanours of the minority.
If my analysis is correct, in another year or so, whether we like it or not, we shall be forced to carry out all our financial dealings on the Internet, and those without a computer will be forced to go to one of these computing centres, or more likely the facility will be provided by local government in their offices and libraries. For someone like myself who has lived through so many changes, we find that life is no longer simple, as soon as you are competent in any particular field, the rules and operations of the field are changed again and again, often for very little purpose.