547280

For reasons obscure the Dividend number from the St Cuthbert's Co-op, or was it the Leith Provident one, came to mind today.  This was the number offered each time we spent our money in the Co-op round the corner, one of the first small 'supermarket' types shops in 1953!  I suspect that like many others I mixed up the two numbers offering the wrong one one many occasions although this would be offset by other little boys and girls doing exactly the same throughout the area.  
The number however is significant.  This was our life!  We were that number and in so many ways we are nothing more than a number.  One brought into this life we obtain a National Insurance Number, this follows us forever, supposedly in safe keeping by the Civil Service.  For the most part this does not matter but under a totalitarian government, which this one is threatening to be, it could become dangerous.  The UK has never gone in for Identity Cards except when involved in major war and to ensure freedom a totalitarian approach must be temporarily invoked.  This does not ignore the Census which is intended to discover the population numbers.  A few years ago a major fuss ensued when such cards were proposed by someone or other and it was not just the £82 price that brought many to grumble, it was the state interference in our lives.  Yet we all have National Insurance numbers?
We are known by number in this computerised world, on goods we buy online as 'Customer Numbers,' we possess driving licences with numbers, insurance companies love the length of the numbers they use, our goods at home are all in possession of serial numbers, even football players have to possess squad numbers so they can be recognised!  Astro physics I am told is all about reducing everything to numbers, our houses have numbers on the doors (but not '13' as women will not buy a house with that number on the door), we identify the bus that runs late by its number and the very road on which it runs late has a number more than likely, and riches arrive at our house if we pick the right Lottery Numbers.  No neither have I.
We are not human, we are mere numbers in spite of what 'The Prisoner' used to say.