Len Bushell
Len Bushell,
talks about the Credit Union:
"The Credit Union idea
started over 100 years ago,
but the group that I am a member of
was started in 1967
by a group of Caribbean people
living in Croydon.
It's a co-operative self-help savings
and loans organisation,
and the main purpose is
for a group of individuals
to get together
and pool their savings
and create a fund
from which they can then lend
to each other
at reasonable rates of interest,
substantially lower
than any that one could obtain
from any of the banks
or building societies.
Those pioneers,
the founders,
felt that there was a need for it.
I suspect that many of them
had been moving
into house ownership
and they needed the funds
to furnish the house,
buy some utilities,
and regarded this
as a useful and proper way,
a formal way,
to work together to help each other."