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Three members of the Society (Nick Colley, Michael Dobbs and Alistair Kennedy) gave a display to the British Postmark Society at their meeting at STAMPEX on 17 September. The subject was British Forces postmarks until the 1930's. We had an enjoyable time, combining a visit to STAMPEX with providing a display, although we were extremely disappointed at the woefully small turnout (both Alistair and myself are members of both societies). Those that did turn up were not disappointed. Nick Colley started the proceedings showing a fine selection of British naval mail during WW1 and beyond. He started with items from ships involved in the Battle of Jutland. Naval items were cancelled with handstruck barred undated circular marks, early Krag machines both dumb, crosses with just date and inscription, plus other miscellaneous undated marks of a makeshift nature - 'cotton reel' marks, crosses of various types and sizes. Also included were a numbered of registered items showing the variety of registration labels employed - such as Fleet Mail Office A, Fleet B and blank labels. Nick also showed a selection of naval mail subject to "postage due". All these included the usual variety of censorship marks usually associated with WW1 naval mail. Michael Dobbs also displayed a small amount of naval mail, but the bulk of display was WW1 Army datestamps, in the main the Army Post Office 'S' series, some with unusual uses (e.g S.69 the British Mission with the Portuguese Expeditionary Force; S.70 on the Cherbourg - Taranto L of C route; skeleton S.81 with Corps Troops and S.84 used by Canadian Corps Schools and Training Camps). He also showed a number of items from APO/FPOs with the Italian Expeditionary Force. Finally he showed two items from the 1930s - FPO 10 with the British contingent of the Saar plebiscite force and Army Signals datestamp -Z/F- on a message form dated 17.X.37 from HQ 6th Infantry Brigade (2nd Infantry Division) thought to have been on an exercise in the UK at the time. Finally Alistair Kennedy produced a number of items that tried not to duplicate what had already been shown. He included camp postmarks in the UK, including variations used for the Central Flying School at Upavon and a selection of items from APOs set up for Autumn manoeuvres held in the UK between 1903-18. For WW1 he showed various postal markings used by the Home Depot in London through which forces mail was channelled as well as the special series of postmarks issued to Divisions allotted to Home Defence - they had the initials HD included in the datestamp. Also shown were postmarks used by the Australians and Canadians in the UK, mainly used as delivery or redirection markings. He then moved on to the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and showed a variety of postal markings and the establishment of a Postal Regulating Depot once the BEF had moved away from the Channel ports, which also had its own postmark. Alistair also included prisoner of war mail and Army Base Post Office marks and a very nice Army Telegraphs datestamp -S/C- dated 29.VIII.12 used at the Stoney Castle Training Area on Pirbright Common. |