Nine members and two guests attended the Members’ Regional Meeting held at The Three Swans Hotel, Market Harborough. As per the normal set-up for Members’ meetings, the event commenced with a 50-lot room auction arranged by Richard Flemming, with over 60% of the lots sold. The sum realised from the bidding was over £400. Prior to lunch, members and guests were entertained with two five-frame displays. First, Gavin Wood showed an excellent display of Sark material from the German Occupation period, including several exampled from and to the Dame of Sark, and a registered letter bearing 5 x 1d and one ½d stamps printed on French bank note, together with a SARK/No. 1600 registration label. This was followed by Richard Flemming who showed five frames of Jersey and Guernsey Feldpost mail, including an item of mail from Guernsey that managed to leave the island during the period when the Feldpost office was shut after D-Day, together with a ‘Fortress’ period letter that was sent on the 11th flight from Guernsey.
After lunch, David Winnie showed five frames of Herm material, that according to David, has not seen the light of day for three decades and was described as “work in progress”. Most of the material in the display was pre-1949, including a 1925 ‘proper’ Herm post office double circle datestamp on envelope. At this time the post office was located in the Mermaid Tavern. There was also a 2½d Herm meter mark: a meter mark that was only used for a few months to cover the sealed letter rate. David concluded his display by showing examples of the Herm Pigeon Post mail, including ‘stamps’ and genuine letters that had been flown from Herm to Guernsey by pigeon.
Next came Julian Bagwell who showed an interesting 48-sheet display of early (pre-1840) Guernsey postal history, including a manuscript “From Guernsey” on a 1799 letter and a scarce“FROM GUERNSEY” handstamp on an 1826 letter. The final two items in Julian’s display was a 1d black cancelled with a red Maltese cross on letter sent during September 1840 and an example of a ‘Mulready’ cancelled with a red Maltese cross dated 5 June 1840. This is probably the earliest know example of a ‘Mulready’ being used from the Channel Islands.
Nick Martin showed eighteen examples of mail from the Channel Islands to France, including some interesting postage rates on mail into St Malo.
Finally, in absentia, Gavin Wood showed five interesting frames of Gerald Marriner’s ‘Overseas destination mail from the Channel Islands’, including an item of mail dated May 1900 sent to Sark from the Orange River Colony, and an item dated May 1901 from Cape of Good Hope, also destined for Sark. Both scarce items.
Members attending the Market Harborough meeting. Photo by Steve Norman
