In an age where we no longer memorise phone numbers and even the three digit security code on the back of our bank cards takes a moment to come to mind, there's still one number that Edinburghers of a certain vintage will always remember - their divi number.
If you lived around Leith in the 20th century, you most likely shopped at the Leith Provident Co-operative - known fondly by locals as the 'Provi' or even just 'The Store'
But the Co-op, customers weren’t just customers - they were stakeholders. You would be assigned a dividend number - known as ‘divis’, where you could recoup some of the money you had spent over the year based on how much profit the co-op had made. A member would collect stamps and fill a book which could be traded for goods in store. To this day, many Edinburgh residents can still rattle off their parents’ - or their own - divi numbers.
