MY surrender to my wife’s suggestion to wait until we returned to France before insuring the car that we had left in the UK might have seemed a little risky. It seemed we had no alternative, unless we paid some company £240 to cover the car being driven back to France for four days, maximum.

However, we were wearied beyond belief. I had used my debit card to pay the garage for a substantial deposit on the car, and I half-expected the bank to telephone me to check I really wanted this payment to go through.

For instance, when paying with my French bank card in France when online, I will receive an automated call, providing a code that enables me to complete the purchase. It is a little tedious but then French banking is otherwise so laid back, it can be baffling.

However, I went for a brief shop in Watford one afternoon and popped into the NatWest, hoping there would not be a queue at the counter that specialises in customer assistance. To my surprise the counter had gone but four laptops were available for customers. This in itself seemed unusual in that you go into a branch to speak to someone. You can use a computer at home.

With back to the wall, I typed in my access code but the screen flagged up a sign telling me to be patient. After two minutes, I decided to abandon the attempt to enter my account and duly did so.

I returned to where we were staying in Sarratt, and duly contacted the bank and transferred several thousands of pounds across to my current account.

The next day, as we walked round Sainsbury’s trying to stock up for our trip back to France, I received an email asking me to contact the bank’s fraud office.

I did so immediately, talked to an officer, who took me through innumerable questions. They checked all my information and then asked me if I had used a service provider in the last 24 hours. I told them I had popped into their branch but the service was so slow, I abandoned it.

It was at this stage I ran out of credit on my English mobile. The call had used up £11 worth of call time. And, of course, when I got back to them on Ellie’s mobile, I had to go through the entire process again. I told them I was not interested in spending pounds talking to them a second time and they agreed to phone me back.

Apparently the entire incident was flagged up because I had used the NatWest laptop and then cut off the connection because it took an age.

Having cleared up this point, I asked if I was going to have trouble transferring a large sum to the garage. That was not their concern but they took my point and put me through to a service that could help. Again we went through the security procedure and they acknowledged that I could contact and transfer the funds the next morning.

As soon as the thumbs up came through from my son-in-law, who was querying a fault on the heating system, which had been cured, I contacted the garage and received their bank details.

So I phoned a number at NatWest and got through to a Stuart Roe (could have been Stewart Rowe or any combination of spellings). He told me I should really phone someone else, but said he would undertake to see the transaction through. He was extremely helpful - so helpful I felt like nominating him for the New Year’s Honours List.

After so much chaos with insurance and banks, this was a delight. He went so far as to keep the line open while I contacted the garage to check if the money, which had left my account, had reached the garage account.

It had not but I was assured it would be there before close of business. I thanked Mr Roe and joined my wife, read the paper for a spell and felt relaxed that finally all had been done before everyone shut down for New Year.

Before we went out, I happened to open my laptop and discovered an email flagged up as urgent.

The bank’s fraud department had blocked the payment. I should get in contact with them immediately.

By the time I had gone through the tedious security checks, my anger had abated. The operative explained that I was trying to transfer a significant sum over £11,000 to an outside account.

I asked them if they talked to each other, or flagged up notes on an account having already dealt with and given the go-ahead for the transaction. I instructed them to lift the block immediately as the money had to be in the garage account before close of business, otherwise the garage would call off the deal.

The operative went away and consulted with someone else and eventually returned to tell me they were lifting the block and the money would go through. And it did. The point that really annoyed me was that he adopted the attitude that he was doing me a favour, allowing me to spend my money.

I wrote to NatWest. I explained that of course security was vital but so was customer service and , two months later, I was still awaiting a reply, so I wrote again. They wrote, then phoned, apologised offered me £25 compensatiopn and paid my £11 phone bill. The adviser did suggest tht I should ask the team to flag up thre fact I was about to transfer many thousands. Of course, that is exactly what I did, but I decided not to labour the point. So it is not just French banks that have the effectiveness of an elephant with an egg-whisk.