Despite being told otherwise every day of the week, and despite continual gloom about petrol, electricity and gas prices, I'm clinging to the fast receding hope that the credit crunch won't be as bad as everybody keeps saying. This may be because in a naïve way I'm hoping that being old but still working will mean that I won't have as much credit to crunch as some of the unfortunate young people setting off on domestic bliss with hundreds of thousands of negative equity around their newly wed necks. The naivety of this is underlined by the knowledge that the moment I seem to have any kind of money saved or even a pay rise I take more loans out for things (usually things with an engine) for which I have not any use unless I grow a number of extra backsides in the near future. As a friend recently said when I told him I was buying another bike – 'You have only one arse you know!'

However, one interesting thing to have come out of all this gloom is that, according to the Sunday papers, the pawnbroker is making a comeback. In truth I don't know if he (can you have female pawnbrokers or are they just called wives?) ever went away but I don't remember seeing any for some time. Indeed being a post war baby I don't ever remember my family visiting the pawnshop but I am assured by them that they did. It is only recently that I figured out how it all worked since I assumed that once it – diamond ring, necklace, pair of stout boots – went into the pawn shop it could be sold. Now I realise that the owner had a few days grace which gave time to gather up the cash and redeem the stout boots for church the following Sunday.

I suppose if you think about it this was a really good way to borrow a few pounds with not too much interest. Problem was, from what I hear, the pawnbrokers themselves were less than pleasant and the interest rate charged less than small. And then you had the shame and ignominy on top of that of people seeing you entering the pawnshop. There should have been a law to say that all such premises had to be hidden down side streets but I suppose that would have made it worse since you could only have been down that particular side street on one mission. At least on the main street you could argue you had just bought three sirloins for the tea instead of the boiled egg and the banana you were actually going to have.

I have been in a few pawnshops when I lived in England and I'm not sure if it is politically ok to say that they were really interesting places. They were filled with things that people thought they could do without but that when you saw them you realised you had wanted all your life and more tantalisingly these objects were left wherever they landed and so the whole shop had to be scoured for that magical thing your life would not be complete without.

On reflection we still have pawnshops we just don't call them that anymore. Car boot sales have to be a form of pawnshop. You go along with a pile of rubbish, sell it to a fool like me, and then spend the money gained on rubbish from someone else's stall. Hence the economy goes around.

And what about E Bay? That is just another form of the pawnshop. Unfortunately for me I have only worked out how to buy rather than sell and so I now have hidden in the house objects ranging from musical instruments I will never play (a miniature bagpipe for Heaven's sake!), t-shirts I will never wear to pairs of boots that do not fit me. At least in the pawnshop you got the chance to try them on. I also have an E Bay record for payment for objects I failed to get the money off for quickly enough. Still it is a cool boast to say that I have a virtual criminal record.

Crucially these forms of economy are acceptable because they make up what is referred to as the 'groundswell' economy, people selling to other people and cutting out the middle organisation. Much better than the stigma of the pawnshop and having to sneak early each week to a man and pay him more than he gave you to get your own possessions back. And paying people a decent wage and ensuring that social welfare actually works might save us all the embarrassment of having to regularly visit the shark who should always be referred to, with suitable contempt, as the man with three balls.