Let's keep on using miles - but spare me from rods, poles and perches!

One of the many consequences of Brexit will be freedom from regulations that might enforce metric units of measurement.

Thankfully, the mile, the yard, the foot and the inch are still with us. Not in every context, but most people use or talk about these ancient units of length on an everyday basis. And a lot of us are familiar with nautical miles, leagues, fathoms and furlongs.

The same with area. We all know (roughly) what an acre is.

The same with volume. We still speak of gallons, quarts, pints, and teaspoonfuls.

The same with weight. Many of us still think in tons, stones, pounds and ounces. (The hundredweight has fallen out of use, although it was commonplace when I was very young in the 1950s, as coal for houses was delivered in hundredweights)

I say 'we' but in fact if I speak entirely for myself then I have to admit that I've 'gone metric' in many respects. I still find it natural to speak of miles and yards, but I measure short lengths in centimetres and millimetres. It just seems more precise. I know that a league is three miles, but confess to being all at sea with nautical miles and fathoms, and flummoxed by furlongs.

An acre is surely the size of the average churchyard ('God's acre') or the average traditional field, but since I'm not a vicar nor a farmer I'd be embarrassed if you asked me to pace out an acre.

I still work out my car's diesel consumption in terms of 'miles per gallon' (though not for much longer - I will probably revise my very long-running spreadsheet on fuel consumption and fuel prices sometime in 2020). But otherwise I think in terms of litres and millilitres. A 'teaspoonful' still has meaning for me though.

As regards weight, I'm happier with a tonne than a ton, and kilograms and grams will do for the rest. When I joined Slimming World in November 2016, everything was done in stones and pounds, and to me this seemed distinctly old-fashioned and awkward. I'd never been comfortable with stones and pounds and ounces. If I thought about it, I did know that there were fourteen pounds in a stone, not sixteen (there are however sixteen ounces in a pound) but it was an effort to remember. By 2016 I had become far too well-accustomed to measuring my weight in kilograms to feel at home with stones and pounds. And since quitting SW in early 2018, I've reverted to kilograms. Again, it just seems more precise, even if the kilogram and gram have a clinical air.

The truth is, my mental arithmetic is unreliable and I need to work with units that are spreadsheet-friendly. At the end of the day, I will use the unit of measurement that's convenient and easy to work with. Sometimes it's an old-style unit (notably the mile); more often than not nowadays, it's a metric measurement (notably the kilogram).

I would have been very resentful if we'd stayed in the EU and one day - in a spirit of pan-European tidiness or standardisation - Brussels had sent out an edict that said metric measurements MUST be used in all circumstances, everywhere, regardless of local customs or traditions. In fairness, it wouldn't have meant much change in my own life. But the high-handedness (and enforced consignment of some useful units to the dustbin) would have rankled.

Mind you, I would be just as perturbed if, after Brexit, there were a wholesale move back to the old measurements!

Whatever their quaintness and charm, I don't want a return to a wide range of old units. They were so difficult to calculate with, the bane of my young life, and they made passing exams so very hard for me. I only just scraped through my Maths O Level. Since then too many brain cells have gone south to cope with rods, poles, perches, chains, barleycorns, bushels, firkins, gills, and all the rest.

The odds are, of course, that the status quo will prevail, and that we will continue with a dual system that uses old-style units for everyday things that we do, such as how far we might walk or drive, but metric units for most other things, such as what we buy. I'm happy with that.

This country has imposed mandatory changes on itself in the past, though. There is no rule that says it can never do something else equally drastic.

If you were around in February 1971, you would have experienced 'D-Day', when the currency was decimalised. The pound had hitherto been split into twenty shillings, and each shilling into twelve pennies, with other divisions too - each with its own special coin or banknote - such as the ten-bob note (ten shillings), a crown (five shillings, legal tender but mainly a commemorative coin for special events), half-a-crown, a florin (two shillings), a shilling (or bob), a sixpence (or tanner; six pennies), a thruppenny bit (three pennies), a penny, a ha'penny (half a penny), and a farthing (quarter of a penny). Actually, I barely remember handling a farthing; it was withdrawn from circulation in the late 1950s. But all of them were in circulation while I was at school.

Anyway, in February 1971, after three years of preparation, everyone had to suddenly get used to the pound being split into one hundred pence. It threw a lot of people.

Despite all the prior publicity, most ordinary folk were not at all up to speed on the 'new' currency. What? One new penny worth 2.4 old pennies? Five new pennies worth a shilling? Nightmare!

And to begin with, it was hard to get your brain around it. I remember, when nineteen, having a perplexed discussion with another girl, not much older. This was at work in Southampton 3 tax office. We were trying to work out what the decimal equivalent of Income Tax at 8/3 in the pound ('eight and three', meaning 'eight shillings and thruppence') might be. The answer was 41.25%, but since both Ann Arnold and I were hopeless with maths, even using pen and paper, we kept our frustrated discussion going for ten minutes. Eventually our Group Leader, Jean Mantle, told us to put a sock in it and get back to work. She added, 'It beats me how two highly intelligent people can fail to grasp what 8/3 is in the new decimal currency!' Which I suppose was rather a compliment in its way.

Of course, soon enough (maybe even later that very morning) we had printed conversion tables to refer to. And within a couple of weeks we were completely at ease with the 'decimal pound'. It certainly made calculations so much easier. (This was, of course, two years before the arrival of little electronic calculators - it was still a world of ready-reckoners)

What I'm saying is that something similar could be done post-Brexit, to get rid of the last lingering 'Imperial' measurements, to symbolise how forward-looking the country is now going to be.

But there's no need. In fact, it would divert thought and energy from so many other things that require a fresh approach. So I hope we focus on those instead.