Bank manager Jonathan Bexley lives above the bank with his wife who has herself addressed as missis Angelina in Bridbury’s public life. This is good, because it allows them to look down on the ‘people’, which also a bit how they feel.

Bridbury’s inhabitants can annoy Jonathan immensely, even now they still regularly approach him with golden sovereigns or even copper farthings that they have saved in an old sock, while surely everyone should know that since the Bank Charter Act only notes issued by the Bank of England are the sole legal method of payment, backed by gold. They both believe that the stately bank building gives Bridbury a touch of prestige and this is not valued quite highly enough. Although Jonathan is an alderman of the town and in that capacity holds regular meetings with mayor Geoffrey Redbridge, dentist John Andrew Waynes and fire officer George Biggin, he still feels that he lacks proper conversation partners. Who can he talk to about the rising costs of the colonies?

Who is truly interested in the financial side of the disturbances in Africa? missis Angelina too, often thinks she is misunderstood. Of course Jeanet Evans and Annie Brent do their utmost best to make or buy pretty hats and dresses, but it is rarely the top and the bank managers wife finds this rather disturbing. For a really first class meal you have to go all the way to Oxford, because although Mary Sutton of restaurant "Eating Time" truly does her best, her cooking is not quite up to missis  Angelina’s standards. Yet still she is secretly a little afraid that her husband will be appointed manager of the Bank of England. Then she would have to leave Bridbury and go to live in London. And she doesn’t fancy that idea. After all Bridbury is her town!