trading in broken dreams

evidence of a time-honoured tradition

Jewel in the crown: pawnbroking's Mr Big, Edward Fox, is putting a new spin on the traditional ''people's bank''. His success has allowed him to venture into new fields, but pawnbroking remains his true love

Sign language: pawnbrokers often instil trust

Ever been tempted? Tempted by instant cash. Walk in, sign the contract, hand it over, walk out with the cash. Six minutes and it's all over. No sawn-off shotguns, no prissy bank manager, no scary loan sharks. The drawback? You've got to give something up first. Your Rolex, sir? That'll do nicely. Your 14-carat diamond-encrusted necklace, madam? Sweet. Your Les Paul guitar and gold discs Mr Faded Popstar? Okay, the lot for two hundred, sonny. It's called the pawn, and more of us are doing it than we profess publicly.

Dubbed the second oldest profession in the world, pawnbroking is a booming business in the 1990s. After reaching a zenith during the 1930s, when it was estimated there were

as many pawnbrokers as public houses, their numbers dwindled as the welfare state was set up post-Second World War. However, in the past decade membership of the National Pawnbrokers' Association has doubled. According to sociologists this is partly due to the middle-classes joining the ''permanently poor'' and ''social problem'' groups as pawn regulars.

The evidence is on our doorstep. In the

past six months two very high-profile pawnshops opened their elegant doors on the unquestionably middle-class pavements of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Chauffeur-driven ladies of royal descent, four-wheel drive dentists and Savile Row-dressed gents in the legal profession are apparently a common sight. A loan to tide them over until the share dividend rolled in or the salary pays for the kids' school fees due yesterday. Lower, middle, upper - whatever your social ranking or bank balance, nowadays no-one is exempt from the pawnshop attractions. So has ''the pawn'' really refuted the days of a mittenless and avaricious Shylock dealing with ''diverse persons of ill fame and repute who live in garrets, cellars and other obscure places?''.

Nathan Finch from the National Association of Pawnbrokers sighs at such outmoded Dickensian cliches. ''That tarnished image of old is very unfair,'' he says. ''Nowadays our clients are the Joe Bloggs with a car, family and house with a short-term cash-flow need that we can help with. We live in a society where borrowing is as natural as breathing. You borrow from a bank, a building society or on hire purchase. A pawnshop is no different.''

David McMillan agrees. The 25-year-old assistant manager of Edinburgh's oldest pawnbroker's, Duncanson and Edwards, he is the apposite image of a Dickensian figure. A geography and economic history graduate from Edinburgh University, McMillan resembles a smartly-dressed and bespectacled bank manager as he escorts me round the plush Queen Street store. ''The idea of a pawnbroker hidden one floor up in a dark alley is untrue,'' he asserts. ''We try to emit a professional image so there's no point hiding away.''

Housed on the corner of Queen and Hanover Streets in a former antique store, this pawnbroker's professional credentials are impeccable. On one side the gold-painted shop-front displays a regal-looking velvet settee, gold leaf table and two Regency-type chairs, paintings of the shootin' and huntin' genre and a bizarre antique copper tea-maker. The desired concept of ''upmarket'' seeps through the glass.

However, on the quieter Queen Street side a traditional scene greets the eye. Stacked neatly in rows are the testaments to a hundred unwatched videos, unplayed golf games, unlistened to hi-fis and a bunch of instrument-less musicians. A trumpet for #275, an entire INXS record and CD collection and numerous electrical kitchen gadgets. That's the retail side. Scan further along the street and your eye will come to rest on an open door. Two strips of blue tartan carpet signal the entrance to the magic kingdom of instant cash. Walk inside this discreet doorway and four hi-tech, but lavishly wood-finished, booths greet you. It could be your local bank branch. Only the scuffed linoleum flooring decorated by the odd smoked cigarette butt tells you different. ''It's bullet-proof glass, everything is on computer and a CCTV system is in operation,'' explains McMillan. This is where the pawnbroking

transactions occur, under cover of privacy and within six minutes. Professional, private and secure - those are the watchwords of today's pawnbroker.

The 1990s pawnbroker is also far more discriminating when it comes to accepting goods. ''First of all we don't accept anything that could be stolen,'' says McMillan. ''Mobile phones, pagers and car radios are absolute no-nos.'' The old cliche of granny pawning her fur coat in summer and redeeming it as the winter frost creeps in, is also outdated. He continues: ''We don't take any clothes because fashions change so quickly, neither do we take white goods as there is nowhere to store them.'' Jewellery and electrical and sporting goods are the staple retail material, says McMillan.

And how does he decide upon the amount to lend? Opening a filing cabinet spilling books and magazines, he explains: ''We have tons of trade magazines, antique reference books and a knowledge that's been accrued from experience.'' And the average loan? ''Between #30 and #50,'' he replies. And what of the sob stories and bad-luck tales fit to break a Scroogian heart? ''You have to be thick-skinned. When people want a certain amount they can whinge and abuse you a bit when you tell them a diamond ring will get them #10 or a #14,000 Rolex will maybe get them #2000 or #3000,'' he adds. ''You've got to remember this is a business not a charity.''

A sentiment endorsed, no doubt, by his boss, Edward Fox. Scotland's Mr Big in pawnshops, Fox is the enterprising 43-year-old businessman behind both Glasgow and Edinburgh's new-style pawnshops. Then there's Glasgow oldest pawnshop, Robert Biggar (est 1830), which is next on Fox's revamp list. Plans are afoot to expand into other ''virgin'' pawn territory throughout Scotland. Business is booming and Fox is a happy man. Standing at a statuesque 6ft 5in the gold Rolex, cuff links and rings sparkle on hands so big they'd look more at home on a coalman. Jewelled signs of a growing prosperity acquired since he joined the business as an apprentice in 1971 and subsequently bought over from the Biggar family.

The four pubs, the Metro night club and well-connected Craigie Carpets are all subsequent fruits of his pawnbroking labours. The High & Mighty suit and the accountant's glasses cannot disguise an entrepreneur who loves the cut and thrust of a business that has fascinated him since the age of 17. While trying to inveigle me into writing a feature on his Craigie Carpets business - ''We make carpets for McDonald's and Arabian royalty'' - Fox admits that of all his ventures pawnbroking is what he loves best. ''It's in my blood. I still work behind the counter. I could never sell up,'' he smiles.

Hunkered down in front of the impenetrable looking Fort Knox safes, Fox describes the role of the pawnbroker as ''providing a valuable service'' to the two million people who do not have bank accounts. Or those on the credit black list. ''We are the bankers for the people,'' he says. ''We can assist people where a bank would charge processing fees or you get frightening overdraft charges. It is a unique means of getting the money you need without actually selling anything.'' And the interest rates from this ''People's Bank?'' He uses the example of a ring worth #10,000 which would raise perhaps #200 with #10 interest. ''Eighty-five per cent of our clients come back and redeem their goods or take out another loan within the six months,'' he says.

Those goods can range from house deeds to crystal balls or the industrial gas-welding kit he is offered, and declines, while we are talking. A didgeridoo came in last week, a Lamborghini the year before and a Russian count's heirlooms dropped off en route to the casino. These items would be a rare sight on the counter of Glasgow's oldest pawnbrokers - Robert Biggar est 1830.

It is the poor relation in Fox's pawnbroking empire. The new style clearly has not permeated the scruffy side of Argyle Street. Despite McMillan's assertion: ''It is so busy on a Saturday morning we have queues of 40 to 50 people,'' the shop's exterior appears unaware of its brisk interior trade. Yards

away from the flash superstores and credit card spending sprees is a bruised-looking consumer culture. Past the railway bridge, at a dismal block Dickens himself could have invented, is Robert Biggar pawnbroker's. It is not bright like its posh counterparts in the West End or new town, this is down-on-your-luck, verging on poverty. Passing trade is not an option. You come here with a purpose - to raise as much cash as quickly as possible.

A corner location, the retail side appears to subsist on jewellery alone with the exception of an odd electric guitar and amp and a bizarre owl statue. In the small window displays of row upon heaving row of pawned wedding rings have a surprisingly moving effect. The tokens of broken marriages? The avid gambler in search of a last bet? The last stand of husbands or wives with a red-letter gas bill due and their only means of paying resting on the second finger of their left hand? The rows of trinkets, gold chains, identity bracelets and necklaces bought as presents and life-long pledges, pawned by people for whom the bank was not an option. These are the fruits of the 20% of unredeemed pledges.

Each of these has filtered its way from the pawn round the corner. Enter this secretive doorway and you are halfway to the money. The battered linoleum floor is decorated by drops of spittle alongside the odd smoked cigarette. But it is the varnished wooden booths that conjure up the nineteenth-century atmosphere of clandestine transactions. Gone is the hi-tech glass of Queen Street and Byres Road, back in Argyle Street you half expect Shylock to peek round the door rubbing his hands in glee at another potential customer.

In keeping with pawnbroking contract, if goods are not collected and paid for within six months they emerge from a safe and are up for grabs as the property of the broker. Despite the 100% legality of the operation, you get the uneasy feeling that to wear something so intimate as a ring or bracelet bought from a pawnbroker's would be comparable to wearing the jewellery of a dead stranger. The receipt could not diminish the history of an object which is only yours, it seems, by default.

Whether the Argyle Street customers agreed or not, it was impossible to tell as those I approached were largely unwilling to chat. The older gent who lugged an amp into the booth was too out of breath. The pensioner with a shopping trolley filled with unknown potential too embarrassed. Only the two 40-something sisters looking to pawn an inherited piece of jewellery let slip that ''this is more comfortable than going to a proper shop where they'd rip you off!''. The logic being that as a familiar family tradition ''going to the pawn is natural''. Yet, anonymity had to be assured. ''Nobody wants the neighbours to know when you're skint,'' reasoned one sister.

However, those exiting from the Byres Road branch were a little more communicative which slightly bolsters Edward Fox's assertion that ''all sorts'' use his service. One lady in a snappy-looking N-reg ''people mobile'' jumped out with a Canon camera, a present from an ex-husband. ''The credit card bill is due and we're divorced now so there's no sentimental memories,'' she explained jollily. A media type in an Armani suit came out with his Cartier cigarette lighter pawned last year to raise cash for a family holiday. One building-site foreman regularly makes the Friday afternoon trip to pawn his house deeds to stop builders walking off when the wages haven't come through.

And, despite the stigma of buying second-hand and the double stigma that it's second-hand from a pawnshop, there is no shortage of customers keen to snap up a video machine for less than #100 or a Rolex for a few thousand. A couple searching for a birthday gift for their 14-year-old daughter hit upon one of the hundreds of hi-fi systems. ''A guy in the bar offered me one last week,'' says the father. ''But you're never sure it it's knock-off and I don't want the polis chapping on my door. I come here before I'll go into town for stuff I know is legal.''

That's the message that the 1990s pawnbroker is hammering away at. To buy or to lend from the pawn is as upstanding and proper as walking into your local bank branch. The stigma is on the slide, the cash is ready and the doors are open for brisk business. The mittenless and avaracious one is slipping into the fusty past - declare the men in suits and Rolexs.