People know the price of everything but the value of nothing in our increasingly cashless society - Sarah Todd

It took us about three hours on Sunday afternoon and, as a little gesture, the kitchen teapot was raided and she was handed a few crumpled bank notes.

She’s 22 and thanked her mother very much, but said sadly that hardly anywhere young people like her go on an evening out to accept cash anymore. We have had similar conversations before; not least when we used to send her back to university with cash to see her through each week.

It used to annoy her financial sponsor (yours truly) that all the students would be tapping their cards and have no concept whatsoever that it was actual money they were spending; whereas she knew that once her purse was empty that was it. Full stop.

She used to grumble that it was embarrassing, that they looked funny at her in the nightclub as she fumbled around, a few drinks deep, to settle her bill.

What a mean mother. The thing is though; she was one of a very small handful to graduate without having run up an overdraft at the bank.

That old saying about people knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing is so relevant in our increasingly cashless society.

It was suggested that the cash be put towards the new dress she was planning to buy for a day at this week’s York Races. “I’ve already ordered it from the website,” she said, adding that she has pretty much given up going into shops as they never have the same choice that’s available online.

That just seems so sad. But there is truth in it. As a vertically challenged person, shops no longer seem to stock their petite ranges of dresses or trousers in shorter leg lengths. When a shop assistant is finally found they look as if you’ve asked for a ticket to the moon; sourly saying “they’re all online”.

Going shopping is about so much more than buying clothes or groceries and not to grasp this is society’s loss.

Just yesterday the BBC Breakfast programme reported on there being more self-service checkouts than manned tills at Morrisons supermarket in Beverley.

In this instance it was interesting to go online, at the local BBC Radio Humberside website, and have a proper look at the story. As an aside, regional news outlets are so important and should be cherished like the jewels in our communities they are.

What would the founder Sir Ken Morrison make of shoppers wanting to part with their hard-earned money and not being able to find a real-life member of staff to serve them? Or, in many instances, being unable to pay with actual cash.

The comments from the radio listeners say it all, that people - especially those elderly and living on their own - like a chat with a cashier. Many also find the self-service tills difficult to use and worry that they will eventually do people out of their jobs.

Living out in the sticks, going into town has for generations of our family been something to look forward to. There are some old diaries that make mention of the sinking of the Titanic, so 1912, in the same breath as recording travelling from the farm into town by pony and trap.

When my late granddad went to the livestock market he would drop my grandma off in town.

Our local town used to be bustling on market days with people coming in from the country and enjoying a bit of shopping and a catch up at the same time. Now the farmers are a rare species, gawped at by the affluent (card rather than cash carrying) visiting tourists.

One of this writer’s earliest memories is going with the other grandfather to get the cheque put in at the bank on the way home from market. He’d have a job to find a bank open to deposit it in now. Payments from livestock sales are mostly all done electronically, by bank transfer.

When he sells this year’s lambs The Son will be told to ask for a cheque. In this Luddite’s mind it’s so important for him to see the year’s work; to feel it in his hands.

While he’s paying it in, he can then withdraw this relief shepherdess a little bit of cash as a token of appreciation.