Incidentally I hadn't written a cheque for ages. Had the National Insurance Office not received my Class 1 contributions, I would have re-directed some of my frustration at them. I wanted to make an electronic payment but for instructions you have to phone them; their phone only tells you they're too busy so try again later. After several attempts I followed "how to pay by cheque" on the invoice.

I imagine that a bank here would simply bounce the cheque and you would be charged the fee for that.
Your creditor would then be slightly peeved, and either be mean enough to continue representing the cheque (generating more bounce fees) or would attempt to contact you about the problem.

I also vaguely remember a bank here advertising to the effect of - if you accidentally go into overdraft, but have funds in other accounts, they would either use the other accounts to cover the cheque or at very least only charge you the unarranged OD interest rate on the outstanding balance since you clearly had funds available but had erred.

It is always nice to deal with a sympathetic person. It's a shame that so much of banking satisfaction appears to be dependent upon your relationship with your manager or someone who is not the "more than my job's worth" rigid-rule-following type. I can definitively say that my view of my banks past and current is based on the competence and people skills of my regular contact person. What a difference it makes when I feel my banker is my friend.

Good on you for standing up to unnecessarily punitive fees.