ASK people to name D-Day and the chances are they’ll say it was June 6, 1944, when the Allies landed in Normandy.

Another date was briefly known as D-Day, though.

Decimalisation Day came on February 15, 1971 – 44 years ago next Sunday.

It marked the biggest change in our currency since Britain was part of the Roman Empire.

The old system had 240 pence to a pound, 12 pence to a shilling, two shillings to a florin, two and a half shillings to a half crown and various other permutations of coinage.

A shilling was also known as a bob, a florin as two bob, half a shilling – or six pence – as a tanner and a three-penny coin as a thruppeny bit or a joey.

The new system simply had 100 New Pence to the pound, but some critics said it was unnecessarily complicated.

In Swindon, which had been embracing innovations for more than a century, there were no such gripes.

The front page of the Swindon Advertiser pictured Mrs Angela Ealey and her children, Maria and Sean, who were among the first people to receive decimal change at an unnamed shop in Regent Street.

We reported: “Some grumbled, some couldn’t care less, and some even pretended it wasn’t there.

“But for the majority of Britain, Decimalisation Day has gone smoothly.”

We discovered few hitches in Swindon, with customers and staff of banks, building societies, shops and other businesses taking to the new money fairly readily.

“D-Day on Swindon’s buses,” we added, “has gone very well according to the Corporation transport department, although some peak period services were delayed as passengers took time to get used to the new fares.

“There were no apparent signs of people in distress, although shop managers reported some early hesitation.

“Other customers have completed their buying and then reached for their pockets and purses for a conversion table.”

A Swindon man called Bill Saunders, who lived in North Street, told us his secret to cracking the decimal code: “Simple as anything. Every minute on my watch face is a new penny.

“So if I want to know how many New Pence there are, say, in seven shillings, I just count up the minutes to the seven on my watch. That’s 35 new pence.”

This was a good system – at least for sums up to 12 shillings or 60 new pence.

Something else for people to contend with on that momentous day nearly 44 years ago was that some of the old coins were still in circulation.

Sixpences, now worth two and a half new pence in spite of still being known as sixpences, would not be withdrawn until 1980.

Shillings, now worth five new pence, stayed until the introduction of smaller 5p coins in 1990; florins, now worth 10 new pence, stayed around until 1993 when the same thing happened to 10p pieces.