Financial legend whose knowledge may have netted you a 7,500% return

You slaved for your savings… now make them do the same for you.’

When do you think the above headline was written? It featured on a lead story in Money Mail, which advised people to get a good rate on their savings – and ensure that their cash was not ‘steadily eaten away by inflation’.

Such an article would not look out of place in today’s edition of Money Mail. Our current savings guru Sylvia Morris regularly shares similar advice.

Yet it featured in the first-ever Money Mail in September 1966 and was written by the man who launched these pioneering pages in the Daily Mail, Sir Patrick Sergeant.

Sir Patrick was a trailblazing City Editor of the Daily Mail and founder of the renowned financial publication Euromoney. He died last week aged 100.

While the articles he wrote and commissioned almost 60 years ago about family finances seem commonplace now, when Money Mail started they were revolutionary.

The financial pages of newspapers at the time tended to be about company results, the economy and trade. Information about how to build wealth was still largely reserved for those who were already rich.

With Money Mail, Sir Patrick created the first personal finance section in Britain. He wrote about the financial concerns of ordinary households.

The formula was so robust that it lives on hardly changed: vital information on savings, insurance, investments, pensions, property – the same bread-and-butter subjects that we write about today.

Money Mail addressed the topics that really mattered to readers. 

For instance, in its first few issues, it answered questions such as ‘How much can I give away (without paying inheritance tax)?’, ‘Should I pay off my house?’ and ‘How much does it cost to get a divorce?’.

It also explored concerns of readers not usually represented in the financial pages of newspapers, such as ‘Can an unwed mother get a mortgage?’.

It stood up for readers and their finances at a time when their rights were not a patch on what they are today.

In 1966, there was no Consumer Rights Act, enshrining the rights of shoppers in law. 

There was no Financial Ombudsman Service to arbitrate when individuals faced disputes with their bank, lender or insurer. There was no Section 75 to protect credit-card users when purchases went wrong.

So having Money Mail fight the readers’ corner was as essential as it was groundbreaking.

Needless to say, Money Mail was a roaring success among readers and advertisers – and over the coming decades every national newspaper launched their own personal finance sections.

Much of Sir Patrick’s advice is still on the money today.

In a guide to buying shares, he advised readers to make sure that they had a good sum stashed away in savings first. ‘

Before investing in shares you must have some savings in the Post Office, building societies, banks and so on which can be turned into cash quickly,’ he wrote.

‘How much depends on your age, your other resources and how easily you can borrow from your bank, but I do not like to see people buying ordinary shares until they have at least £500 safely set aside for emergencies.’

Today, those words ring just as true: now experts advise that you have up to six months’ worth of living expenses in cash before you invest in shares.

In a 1966 article entitled ‘A home is a good investment’, he wrote: ‘Buying a house and living in it is still the best investment of all for most people.’ How right that proved to be. 

A home at that time cost £3,465 on average. Today, the average is worth £265,012, according to Nationwide. That would have meant a return of 7,548 per cent – or 7.76 per cent a year.

One of the most brilliant financial journalists of his era,

Sir Patrick had an uncanny knack of seeing into the future.

In February 1966, he wrote about the tactics used by the Labour government and the then Chancellor of the Exchequer James Callaghan to prepare the country for an uncomfortable Budget it planned to deliver.

We can only hope his lively description of the tactics used can be applied to those employed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves and her warning of ‘tough decisions’ ahead of her Budget next month.

‘I sometimes suspect that Labour ministers are using much the same tactics over the Budget as company chairmen faced with poor reserves and a dividend cut,’ he wrote. 

‘A few weeks in advance such chairmen whisper confidentially that times are bad and the dividend will have to go down. The shares fall. Inquiring bankers and City editors are prepared for a halving of the dividend.

‘The news comes – it is that the dividend is going down from 20 per cent to 15 per cent. Relieved, everyone ignores the cut and says how much better it is than expected. The shares rally. 

‘So with the Budget. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor have prepared us for the worst without committing themselves to anything.’

Some of his ideas are still being debated. In January 1966 Sir Patrick wrote an article arguing for an end to the penny and halfpenny. 

‘The soaring price of copper and its scarcity give us a wonderful opportunity to get rid of those curses of our pockets and purses, the penny and the halfpenny,’ he said. 

He pointed out that the coins were worth more as metal than as currency and should be melted down.

The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in 1984. But it was only this year that Treasury officials for the first time ordered no pennies to be minted for general circulation, putting the coin’s future in doubt.

When Sir Patrick launched the first edition of Money Mail, it was emblazoned with the slogan ‘The new Daily Mail section about money… how to save it and how to make it work for you’.

That motto has never changed – and neither will our commitment to improving the lives of you, our wonderful readers.