The word Philately sounds a bit daunting to those not actively interested, so perhaps stamp-collecting is a term that is more familiar. Yet it is not only stamps, whether used or mint, that form the collected material. These days many collectors prize the envelopes that bear stamps cancelled on their day of issue; these are called First Day Covers and are usually specially commissioned by design artists to feature some aspect of the subject matter of the issued stamps. If stamps were being issued with a picture of Banbury Cross, most collectors would seek a special “Banbury” cancellation, but little interest would be found if the cancel was, say, Slough. It is interesting to record that there is a small village near Llandilo, Carmarthens called Bethlehem and that each year as the traditional Christmas stamp issue is awaited, thousands of covers are made ready for the special Bethlehem Christmas postmark.

Once it was the schoolboy who formed a somewhat haphazard collection of such stamps as came his way through the kindness of the uncle who traded overseas, or the secretary who opened the mail. These well-meaning adults did not realise how much interest could be gained from the complete covers, showing the names of sender and receiver and the appropriate postmarks and the rate required for the particular item at the time. Mostly the stamps were just torn off and some unfortunately damaged in the process. Talking of rates, do YOU know all the different rates for Royal Mail since they went up in April? Study of rate changes is quite absorbing. The British definitive stamps bearing the Queen’s portrait after a bust by Arnold Machin have racked up hundreds of changes in values, colours, papers, phosphor bands, watermarks and perforations, both in decimal and pre-decimal.

Mention has been made of covers and it is wrong to suppose that no-one posted letters before 1 st May 1840 when the penny black was launched. In early times letters were the privilege of the educated, hence few were written. However, the Rulers of states needed to convey messages to those in authority in outlying parts of their realms or get replies back, so they established routes on which horsemen or runners were posted. The King’s Posts were set up throughout England in the middle ages and in 1660 the General Letter Office was established and allowed by Charles II to carry civil mail in addition to that of the king. Pre-stamp postal rates were determined by weight and distance from London. In Mail Coach days most of the mail went into London and out again as there were few ‘cross posts’. Envelopes made by folding a letter and securing with a blob of hot red wax were generally about 5 inches by 3. In 1831 a letter of this size sent from Banbury to Mon-mouth, actually cost the sender, a Mr Hardwick, 9 pence, an enormous sum by the standards of the day. In January 1840 a national rate of Id in anticipation of the adoption of stamps.

I could go on talking about stamps for much longer, but the Editor won’t let me have more space. Perhaps I’ll get a chance another month. There is an energetic club locally. Any comments to me via the Editor, please.