I don’t know if it’s still true, but a friend of mine (American) married a British girl while stationed over there, and after he got out they lived in England for a couple of years. He tells the story about their electric meter...it was “coin operated”. You want power, you have to put coins in the meter and but it by the hour, day, whatever.
They would get up in the morning and run to the meter and drop in the coins to get ready for work. And don’t dare come home at night without some change.
Never saw the meter stuff on any British shows. Insane.
Coin ops died out by the millennium, they were few and far between even by the late 90s.