Emptying the house of a deceased parent is never going to be fun. But it is likely to promote some fond memories. This was the case just last week as my wife and I prepared my late dad’s home for the final clearance.

As it happens, most of my tangible boyhood mementos had already been removed. When I left home and married at the age of twenty-three, Diane and I moved into a small house in Stirling. There wasn’t much in the way of storage space, so I was restricted in what I could take with me. My Subbuteo set was a no-brainer. As was my large collection of football programmes. And of course, I’d somehow find room for my boxes of Athletics Weekly magazines, dating back to 1972.  

Phew!

Just as well I did, because my folks had no appreciation of the sentimental and ultimately financial value of what I left behind in their supposed safe keeping.

When, some years later, Diane and I moved to a larger property, I returned to my old family home to retrieve my collection of TV21 comics, my Dinky and Corgi cars (including The Batmobile and James Bond’s Aston Martin – with working ejector seat!) and Hornby train set.

“What? That old tat? We threw it all out years ago.”

WHAAAAAT?!!

I’ve never gotten over the shock. Or forgiven my parents.

So, I was mighty surprised last week to find, stashed away in a corner of my dad’s loft, a stamp collection I was given by my grandfather when I was a nipper.

Ah! Stamp collecting. I know what you’re thinking. Only geeks and kids with no pals collect stamps.

Not so. Or certainly not in the late ‘60s and early 1970s. It was quite a big deal back in those days when there were only three television channels and playing in puddles after a rain shower was the highlight of your day.

It was simply the forerunner of bubblegum cards and Panini stickers.

I’m not saying I was an avid collector. If I’m honest, I find my dad and grandfather’s old collections more interesting now than I did then. They did hold a certain fascination though – and of course collecting stamps did qualify me for one of only two badges to display on my Cub Scout uniform.

In those days before internet communication, many boys and girls had relatives or pen-pals who would write letters (remember?) from all corners of the world.

The ‘collection’ process would begin with carefully tearing the recently delivered envelope around the stamp, then soaking it in warm water to remove the stamp from the fragment of paper. The stamp would be dried, preferably between sheets of something called ‘blotting paper’ 😉 and then stuck in an album specifically produced for that purpose.

But not glued in. Oh no, no no! That would mean being unable to remove them again without ripping the page. No – special little transparent sticky hinge-like papers had to be used.

Well, strictly speaking, there was more to it than that. The most ‘valued’ stamps to us little schoolboy / schoolgirl collectors was one that evidenced it had ‘travelled’; one that had been used and the stamp cancelled by an ink marking (the frank.) But, it was most preferred if only a little bit of the stamp carried part of the cancellation mark. Just enough to prove it had been used.

A stamp that was covered in the franking was less aesthetically pleasing. The exception for the ’70s collector would be when the Post Office would cancel / frank stamps with slogan type messages. ‘Post Early for Christmas‘ was a common one in the late autumn and initial winter months. In this case, a young collector should have left the stamp and envelope attached, so the whole franking slogan could be read.

Oh, it was so complicated! Rules, rules, rules!

Stamp albums were spilt into countries of origin, and some contained details of the country’s history. This particular one of my dad’s also outlined the history of stamp usage in that territory.

Others would show the country on a world map, and / or display the national flag. I think this must have been where I cultivated my interest in geography.

Stamp collecting was big business in the ‘60s & ‘70s. Trading was brisk, from school playground to specialist dealers. Stanley Gibbons was the big one. It was common practice to send away in a good old-fashioned mail-order kinda way, for a bundle of ‘approvals,’ in a specified category. Upon receipt, you’d select those you wanted, remit the appropriate payment and return the unwanted stamps.

Quaint, ain’t it? 😉

First-day issues and limited-edition ‘specials’ were always well sought after. I seem to recall Blue Peter sometimes making a big deal of these. Strangely, although the show did encourage viewers to send in bundles of used stamps for their Christmas appeals, or have competitions for kids to design the images, the programme itself never did feature as a First Day Cover (FDC.)

The puppet creations of Gerry Anderson did, though. And knowing what a fan I was, friends kindly presented me with this series of FDCs.

For all you collectors out there, the 41p,60p, 88p and 97p stamps, are Royal Mail’s first ‘motion stamps’ produced on a miniature sheet using micro lenticular printing. When you tilt each stamp in the light, it shows the featured Thunderbird taking off.

(Yeah, OK – this FDC was issued in 2011 to commemorate the 50^th Anniversary of the first Gerry Anderson series, ‘Supercar’ being screened in 1961, But we all loved these shows through the Sixties and Seventies, right?)  

So, there you go – I never thought of myself as a philatelist, but perhaps we all were to some extent – until Man from UNCLE bubblegum cards appeared on the scene. Or Pokemon. Or Pogs. Or …

(Post by Colin ‘Jackie’ Jackson from Glasgow – March 2026)