SAFELY tucked away in the vaults of my home are two paper notes that represent a small fortune. How small depends upon the state of the market at the time.

The notes are worth, respectively, 10,000 and 5,000 Reichsmarks each which is to say, not very much as Reichsmarks have not been legal tender in Germany since the collapse of the Third Reich in 1945. So the fact that I am a Reichsmark millionaire should impress nobody!

All the same, these two notes, handed to me several years ago by an elderly Austrian in a cellar on the outskirts of Heidelberg, have a lesson for us all today. Money is indeed of passing value and even our own currency is worth only as much as we think it is.

That's a thought that occurred to me as I wrestled at the weekend with the rest of the Salisbury crowds battling to survive one more Christmas shopping season. Surely, one of the last Christmases to be fought armed with our own familiar, home made sterling weaponry.

How many of us really believe that the pound has long to live? Perhaps, and this is where our currency is weakest, relatively few of us care all that much what we trade in so long as we have it. Well, most of us are already shopping by computer, whether we realise it or not. Before plastic, we were trading in cheques and, earlier still, sterling was a substitute for gold sovereigns.

A European State may be still a long time away; though that is by no means to exclude a halfway house. And if you don't believe it, remember that Germany is already a Federal republic, built on American lines with powerful Lnde, or states.

Meanwhile, let's treasure our pounds while they're still worth it. One day they may be hanging on the wall like old Reichsmarks.