You think Wonga's bad? Just look what the bank did to me

Published: 21:08 EDT, 10 August 2013 | Updated: 19:29 EDT, 12 August 2013

I hate the ads for Wonga. The wrinkly old dears, all fruity and becardiganed. The old man, lecherous. None seem to have dementia but they seem to be working, in their 90s, in an office, which surely says more about their customers’ future than was perhaps intended.

But I once took out a payday loan and it was a lifesaver. I was unable to buy a train ticket home and would have had to walk 200 miles – were it not for an institution that charges a percentage rate in the hundreds.

I used to go to one of those cheque cashing booths, too. I started after I paid for my entire wedding, even down to the groom’s suit, and it’s a hard habit to break. The one I frequented was on Kensington High Street and the man inside would cash my post-dated cheques without demurring, or judging.

I also went to a pawn shop once and tried to sell the pearls my dad gave me for my 18th birthday, only to be told they were paste.

Awful ads: But Wonga can be a lifeline for those with nowhere else to turn

We can criticise the men behind these companies for their interest rates, but they are the only option when there is nowhere else to go.

They meant I could eat and my animals could eat.

The people we should be criticising are the mainstream banks – and this is why .  .  .

I have been a NatWest customer since 1976. I joined NatWest because my dad banked there and they had lovely drawings on the cheques. They seemed safe, reliable, paternal.

This bank has been a constant in my life – there when jobs and relationships came and went. I had a ‘relationship manager’ and knew the female assistant in his office by her first name.

I wonder if some maths whizz could tot up how much my bank has made from my account in those intervening 37 years.

And it would have been more with a mortgage, but they would never give me one. It must be a huge sum of money – interest and charges for writing to me. Then charging for not writing to me, without bothering to tell me they would no longer be writing to me.

I remember phoning the female assistant and asking her to allow me to withdraw £20.

I was in a fix, and she knew I was good for it. I begged. She refused. The computer said no.

Nearly 40 years of loyalty means nothing to these people. So don’t blame these payday loan companies – blame the institutions we keep in business with our financial affairs, decade in, decade out.

Remember the flexible friend? He lied. Bring back the old- fashioned bank manager, not young twits in suits.

Employers, too, should advance us our wages, be a first port of call. Because catastrophe can happen to anyone.

We shouldn’t be ashamed if we get into financial difficulty.

Contrary to what most people think when told women under 35 are going bankrupt more than any other group, it’s not because we buy too many pairs of shoes.

More often, a boyfriend leaves, or we get divorced.

We don’t all have friends or relatives we can call on.

Until then, payday loans are life-savers. Literally.

Riled up: Louise Mensch is apparently still angry about an unflattering piece

I was on the train, reading the September issue of Red magazine.  Ah, Louise Mensch. She is a surgically tweaked mother of three. Candid about the cosmetic procedure to lift the bottom half of her face. ‘I like the way I look. I prefer to keep it that way.’ In the interview, she then said, ‘The day I get up there and do a Liz Jones-style piece for the Daily Mail and say, “Here’s me pre and post-facelift, wow, it’s so great, go and get one done,” then you can say I’m setting an example.’

Um, hang on a minute. I was photographed  as the bandages were taken off; if anything is going to put a woman off following suit, it was those photos. I wrote that, post-facelift, the procedure has not made me happier, nor has it meant my boyfriend has stayed faithful. I wrote, too, about a hand lift, which I had done because it is MY JOB to be a human guinea pig.  I described how painful and expensive it was.

Maybe what really riled Mensch was that, when she announced she was giving up her  seat as MP for Corby, I wrote: ‘Yet another promising woman has bitten the dust, sacrificing her career on the altar of cupcakes and hands that do dishes. I’m sure she has never missed a Power Plate class, but she has shown little staying power in the Westminster arena. She is clearly superhuman, but STILL she let down the people who put their faith in her longevity, tenacity and loyalty, three words that mean nothing to women who ovulate .  .  . ’

I bet she would have frowned upon reading that, were it not for the Botox.