Growing up my fathers mum ran, and still does run a Post Office. My other nan has collected stamps since she was a child. It could almost be said that i was destined to have some sort of interest in the postal service. My Nan, whom collected stamps, sorted out some swaps for me and my mum brought my some bags of random stamps, this was the start of my stamp collection. Later on my other Nan subscribed to the Royal Mail Collectors Club for me, as a Christmas present. This all has kept me rather interested in Philately.
Today my stamp collecting Nan and I spent 5 hours sorting out her swaps for my collection and other stamps that even she hadnt got round to sorting. We still haven’t finished but anyway, I came across the 150th Anniversary of the Penny Black issue stamp and was curious about the details. How much its worth etc, as we have quite a few of them. I found it on the 1990 page and as all of ours our used looked in this column first. Im sure it said it was worth a £1, I then looked in the Mint value column and regardless of how much it actually was in the used column, i know it was worth half as much Mint. How did a Mint stamp, that has never been used become worth less than a stamp that would of been stuck to a piece of paper, probably franked, then some years later maybe soaked off of that piece of paper and then hinged into someones album?
I believe, this has happened because we don’t take the time to do anything anymore. We don’t take the time to write a heart felt letter to a loved one about a snippet of our lifes. I reckon, in 1990, more philatelists brought this stamp in Presentation Packs (mint) than people did use it to actually send a letter or card. This is a sorry state of affairs.
When was the last time you sent a letter? Or took the time to appreciate the Royal Mail? What they do for us now and what they did for people historically, all those long distance lovers. Prices have now gone up again but this is because people are giving their money to electric companies and broadband providers these days. It can imagine it wont be long before we lose this priceless piece of British history. In the way that we know it anyway.
The way that some young people seem to view hard work these days, its going to be some what hard to explain to them about these men and women that used to walk the streets for hours a day delivering paper versions of residents bills and birthday cards. The occasional letter too, that would more often than not get stored away, to be read again and again when its receiver wanted to feel connected to the sender of that piece of their life. The many millions of email inboxes will do this job, the deliverers faceless server providers who could delete these chapters of our lifes in a click of a mouse.
I wonder though, what else will become just memories of the older generation?
Sherbet Liquorice 