I am not the kind of chap who is easily frightened but, until recently, an appointment with a member of either one of two seemingly unconnected professions - banking and dentistry - was guaranteed to bring me out in a cold sweat. One of them still does. And it's not the money man. No matter that, after a lifetime of searching, I have at last discovered a great dentist; one who is practised in the art of setting his patients' minds at ease. A surgeon who comes as close as you get to no pain at all.

But, sadly, not quite close enough for my comfort. Because, for a coward like me, the perfectly painless dentist does not exist. Doctors I can handle. They can jag me here, cut me there and not a dicky-bird of protest will they hear. But the minute I sit myself down in the dentist's chair I fear the worst. I am that terrified patient.

It's the way they lie to you with such ease. ''You'll feel a wee bit of discomfort,'' they say as they prepare to stick that needle in your gob. Discomfort? No, it is pain, pure and simple. And, because you are a middle-aged father of two teenagers, you cannot protest. You cannot scream. You cannot leap out of the chair in panic and make an exhibition of yourself as you flee from the surgery, still in that plastic smock and with two pieces of cotton padding stuck between your gums and your cheek.

No. At my age you have to grin and bear it. Four gins-and-tonic and a couple of Valium help. But it is not the answer. So the dentist remains a necessary evil to a miserable wimp like me.

Not so the bank manager. There was a time when, like the dentist, they were apt to say ''You'll just feel a wee bit of discomfort.'' And they too were lying. For pay-back time was and is always painful.

When first I opened an account (we're talking 30 years ago) the bank manager was an avuncular fellow who, it seemed, was doing me the most enormous favour taking charge of my hard-earned dosh.

I remember my first bank loan (an advance of #400 seemed like a fortune at the time). It took weeks to arrange and involved character references, delicate negotiations, a great deal of paper work, and a sermon on good financial husbandry from a stern-faced senior bank official old enough to be my father. When the loan eventually came through, I was so damned grateful I could have kissed the chap (but it was the early seventies and you didn't do that kind of thing in those days). ''I am indebted to you, sir,'' I said. ''You bet your sweet life you are,'' I think I heard him mutter under his breath.

Then, some years later, when things started going to pigs and whistles money-wise, the same manager was quick to haul me in and, after repeating the same sermon on good financial husbandry, helpfully reorganise my disorganised affairs. Once again I said: ''I am indebted to you, sir.'' To which I'm sure he replied: ''That's the general idea, kiddo, and forevermore I trust.''

And so it went on. Every few years I'd get into soapy bubble and become increasingly more indebted to my bank manager. Then one day I went to visit and he wasn't there. Retired, apparently. In his place was this drop-dead gorgeous lady.

And lying on top of her desk was the story-so-far of my wretched life. Told in chapters of cheques made out to record shops, bookshops, restaurants, filling stations, and department stores. She seemed particularly curious about a series of cheques made out to ''Joe Bloggs'' (not his real name). ''Tell me Mr Laing,'' she said, ''this Mr Bloggs, is he blackmailing you?'' I laughed, nervously.

''Well, no,'' I replied and then explained (somewhat sheepishly) that Bloggs was the name of the proprietor of my local pub who, in a dire emergency, was more than happy to take a cheque for cash. ''Your life appears to be one long emergency, really,'' she observed after a well-rehearsed silence. ''Well,'' I said, ''you know what it's like when the banks are shut and you need money in a hurry. You people should invent some other way of gaining access to your account out of banking hours.''

Now, I'm not suggesting I had anything to do with it but shortly after this encounter my bank became the first in Scotland to stick ATMs into holes in the wall, thereby revolutionising the banking industry.

And so to the present day. As if by magic, my fear of banks has evaporated. Gone, it seems, are the Mr or Mrs managers. And in their place are the youthful first-name-only personal finance consultants. You don't even have to meet them. You just pick up the phone, ask them for a loan or an overdraft or even a mortgage, and before you can say ''how much is this going to cost me?'' the cheque's in the post.

Banks don't exist any more. They have been replaced by money shops where, for customers (like me) who conform to the ''no-pockets-in-a-shroud'' theory, they will sell us all the debt we can't handle. And to think that, just a few years ago, securing a bank loan was, well, a bit like drawing teeth. I owe them one.