ON 15 FEBRUARY 1968, Labour Chancellor Roy Jenkins announced that Decimal Day would take place exactly three years later. When the designs for the new decimal coins were approved, England got its lion, Scotland its thistle and Wales its Prince of Wales feathers. But the Union’s most loyal region – nothing. Occasional Tablet contributor Mark Stocker, who has written a new book about D-Day, When Britain Went Decimal, tells us what happened next. Jenkins promised to rectify matters with a special Northern Ireland 2 pence coin – but didn’t anticipate the kerfuffle over the choice of design: the Red Hand of Ulster. Although this symbol is ancient (and ecumenical), it had developed militant Protestant connotations. Attitudes hardened, and harps and shamrocks obligingly supplied by the designer Christopher Ironside were rejected.