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This was an open opportunity for members to bring along anything from their collection to entertain us or ask us about.
At the same time Peter High brought along a wealth of books at much reduced prices - and some members went away with real bargains.
We also welcomed Owen White all the way from Toronto in Canada to the meeting (more about his display later) - suffice to say that he did not visit the UK specially to visit us, but our meeting coincided with a visit to this country.
Firstly, however, our President, Peter O'Keeffe, asked us to stand in silence for a few moments to remember Chris Cruttwell who had died in July. Michael Goodman kicked off proceedings with items addressed to PO Box 506 destined for countries under German occupation 1939-41 - the Box number was run by Thomas Cook in Lisbon, Portugal.
Many of the items were easily recognised by the use of distinctive yellow re-address labels.
He also showed a selection of returned mail, being items in transit at the time of German occupation.
Lastly he showed some items of returned mail due to various military-related reasons and from various theatres of war.
Our President, Peter O'Keeffe, was next and he put up a selection of correspondence whilst in captivity from a Corporal E W Walker in the RAF who was initially evacuated from Greece to Crete, then captured in Crete and spent 3 1/2 years in captivity.
Michael Dobbs showed a selection of BFPS 1000 covers - starting with the Field Post Office 1000 operational datestamp used in Cyprus in 1963.
It was then withdrawn from use and the number 1000 used as a special datestamp for a stamp exhibition in BAOR in 1966 and eventually became known as the Director's datestamp.
It has been used to promote various commemorative covers and also ordinary first day of issue covers over the intervening years and has been replaced several times - the basic design remained the same but there have been changes in size and appearance. Owen White talked about the Boxer Rebellion through a series of extremely high quality coloured photographic copies of items in his collection.
He first exhibited the display in a local show in Canada during the late 1970's and he has progressed from there.
He also displayed the material in Beijing in 1999 where he won a Vermeil - of course in China he called his exhibit "German Military Mail in China 1900-05"!
German led the Allied force which consisted mainly of Germans, Russians and British (mainly Indians), but it also included detachments from other countries, notably Japan, South Australia and Western Australia.
As a result it is German mail which is most readily available and Owen's display included material from troops going out to China, operations in China and the passage home again.
The Germans made use of the German civil post offices already established in China.
There were five military post offices and the Germans set up another nine.
The Germans were also involved in the occupation brigade set up after the rebellion period.
John Leathes brought along a display he had only just finished a couple of days previous - it was his exhibit for Torquay 2006 and as it exceeded the allotted 30 sheets he was given special approval by the Secretary to display.
The title was "Up Periscope" or a "Quick All Round Look".
It was a thematic display on the history and story of the submarine and embraced covers/stamps depicting submarines, as well as mail to/from such vessels.
Keith Tranmer displayed the siege of Przemysl (in fact there were two sieges - September and November 1914).
Keith recounted the story of the mails of Przemysl (both incoming and outgoing) through the material he displayed which included photographs of some of the leading characters.
Every cover had a personal story behind it and there were many rare items.
Those interested in the history of Przemysl are strongly urged to obtain and read Keith's book on the subject, published in 2003 and still obtainable from the author. Alistair Kennedy reminded us that it was the 90th Anniversary of the battle of the Somme and he displayed items relating to that battle.
This included mail from 4th Army (which later became 5th Army).
The items shown reflected the units involved in the campaign, many of which were identified by the late Frank Daniel's censor records and some of which were supported through the identification of the censoring officers' name.
The display also included items from our founding President Captain Guy Crouch and his brother Captain Lionel Crouch.
This mail reflected their philatelic interests as it was addressed to philatelic luminaries such as Whitfield King and Fred Melville.
He also showed mail to troops returned marked wounded or hospitalised.
Lastly there were a couple of items of mail from three batteries of the French 9th Artillery Regiment serving in the British 13th Corps (using datestamp FPO H6).
Peter Burrows showed a variety of items including an item from 61st EACAMU (what does this stand for?); correspondence from the Royal West Kent Regiment addressed to a member of staff at a POW Camp in England - to Camps 191 and 189 (c.1946/47); he also put up a collection of PW Air Letter sheets addressed to a PW, but the addressee was already dead and was thought to have died soon after capture in North Africa.
They came from his family who had been writing for over 6 months on the assumption that he was still alive.
Peter also put up a small collection of covers that illustrated various censor stamps of the Boer War. |