England Winners 1966 .. and the Postal Museum is a Winner too!!

Union Jack stamp collage, including the 1966 4d World cup England Winners stamp 

On a recent trip to London, I visited the Postal Museum which was opened on 13th June 2017 by Princess Anne.   Entrance tickets are valid for a year, so I  hope to return again soon  to see what I  missed due to time constraints. Everyone was obviously enjoying the many imaginative displays  and the opportunity to go on the fabulous Mail Rail train under the the City.

The Mail Rail, which carried millions of letters every day across London opened in 1927, but closed in 2003.  Run by staff including former postal and railway workers  it makes for a great way to understand the workings of the system with  stops during   the journey for video presentations on the walls of the platforms where the trains would had their mail bags offloaded  for onward delivery.

Back in the museum itself, displays  took us back way beyond the issue of the Penny Black in 1840 to a time of horse drawn Mail Coaches when  the "postmen" carried pistols to defend themselves against Highwaymen. A  coach was  was once also attacked by an escaped lion!
Nostalgia also kicked in with the story of the issue of the World Cup Stamps in 1966, and the issue of the ENGLAND WINNERS  4d stamp after the winning goal was scored in the final on 30th July!
As the daughter of a stamp dealer,  I found the story particularly poignant, as were various other coincidences during my visit.  The guide  told me  that the stamps were first  released for sale at Trafalgar square post office at midnight on 18th August 1966.  I have several still .. and one appears on a Union Jack Stamp collage I created some time ago .  (Prints available to order).   The coincidences I refer to are that my dad's birthday was 13th June, and he was born in 1927 .. and he was there buying those stamps on 26th August 1966, sensing that they would make a good investment.  Maybe they weren't a great investment financially, as you can pick them up now for very little, but for me it is a great story to remember.I know my dad would  certainly have loved the Postal Museum, and with his knowledge of stamps and history,  would have been a great guide!

Variations on a theme of the Union flag, or Union Jack

We're so lucky to have such a wonderful colourful national flag and I've enjoyed making stamp collages of it using a variety of British stamps over the years.  These have been themed to include the word LOVE in the centre, large and small, using the Greetings issues, and in 2012 the year of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee I used more stamps featuring memorable events and icons from the Queen's 60 year reign.  All our stamps have the Queen's head, on so every stamp was appropriate for this particular version of the flag. A previous blog post gives more details about this one - complete with an acknowledgement from Buckingham Palace!
The Beatles have also been featured, with the LOVE,LOVE,LOVE  reference together with six Beatles album covers included in one of the collages.  A Christmas  flag is made up mainly of Christmas stamps!
The original flags are approximately 12 x 9 inches but canvas prints or giclee can be scaled up to any size and the most recent commission was the largest I've ever been asked to produce.

Just before Christmas I received a request all the way from Australia, from a British ex-pat working in Perth asking if I could customise one of my collages and enlarge it as big as possible and have it flown over there. He listed subjects he particularly wanted me to include, such as the Beatles, Sir Winston Churchill, a red telephone box, a guardsman, the England flag, references to Wales and the North West of England - and Mo Farrah winning his Gold Medal at the 2012 Olympics!  There is just one image which is not a stamp -that of Britpop artist, Noel Gallagher, which he particularly wished to be included, and supplied to me to fit somewhere in the design. The poppy was also chosen to be the central image.
I was very pleased with the quality of the print and the efficient service I received from my local printers in producing the canvas from my design to more than a metre in width, and the transport company who collected the parcel from my home and delivered to a very satisfied  client in Perth just 5 days later - in time for Christmas!