THE LIGHTHOUSE

The Eastbourne & South Downs PS Newsletter

Editor: John Wright, 12 Milchester House, Staveley Road, Meads, Eastbourne, BN20 7JX.

No. 19 February 2009

Views expressed in this Newsletter are not necessarily those of the Officers or Committee

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CLUB COMPETITIONS

Two Club Competitions are scheduled to be held on March 19th, the Open Challenge and the Rous Cup. The Open is exactly what it says on the tin, any Club member can enter, without the usual philatelic restrictions. The Rous is restricted to those who have not won an E&SDPS Competition. Sadly, these two Competitions have been poorly supported in recent years - are YOU going to have a go this year in either or both?

THE AUCTION - (From John Qriffin)

Members who attended the January auction will have heard me explain that we are concerned about the bulk and weight of lots provided for the auction. Health and age difficulties, and particularly bad backs, make it increasingly problematic for the team who support the auction to carry the lots around, especially upstairs at St. John. Therefore with immediate effect the auctioneers will accept no more than one carrier bag of lots per person per auction, If this does not result in lighter auctions, we may have to introduce further restrictions.

MARGERY WHARTON

Some additional information on the late, and much missed, Margery Wharton has been given to me.

Margery's thematic Of Ice and Men won many awards and she was a Nationally Accredited Judge for both Thematic and Melville Junior Competitions. Also a writer, for 17 years she edited The Upland Goose, magazine of the Falklands Islands Philatelic Study Group, and for 4 years also edited Polar Post for the Polar Postal History Society of Great Britain. In addition, Margery was a Mathematics Examiner (Key Stage 3 to A Level), and followed St. Helens Rugby League team with great enthusiasm,

MEET THE OFFICERS - 12

Following the death of the then Secretary, Des Watson, in 1992, Bill Harrison (whose contribution to the Society is unsurpassed) took over that post: in that same year, our present Secretary Richard Charles Harris became a member. Richard joined the Committee and remained on it for a number of years before other commitments prevented him from continuing, although he retained membership and followed the progress of the Society with interest.

Richard was born in Carlisle in 1948, living with parents and brother in the small Cumbria coastal town of Silloth, a windswept, granite grey backwater whose only contribution to History was a WW II Aerodrome and a small harbour maintained mainly for ships that came up the Solway Firth with grain for Carr's Flour Mill (a firm whose name will be familiar to many). When Richard was about 5, the family moved to Watford where his father worked for Handley Page (producers in the 1960s of the Vulcan Bomber. Head boy at the local Secondary School, he then went to Catering College in Watford followed by a period in Switzerland continuing his studies in hotel management at an hotel on the shores of Lake Thun. Returning to the UK after a year, Richard began as a management trainee in London with Centre Hotels, and, later, in Hastings, was Group Personnel & Training Manager for a group of five hotels in the South East. Then to Chelsea College in Eastbourne (now part of Sussex University) as Catering Manager where he met Lucy, a student from Hong Kong (but who was Dutch) - they married in 1976, continuing to live in Eastbourne. Richard decided that the Hotel & Catering lifestyle of long hours and poor pay was not conducive to family life and joined Sussex Police in Eastbourne. Lucy became a teacher, first at Ratton Secondary and then (after a period

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OLD LETTER BOXES

Those members present on 16th October will recall the display given by our Librarian, Cliff Battams, of cards featuring the above. The report in The Lighthouse, #18, made brief reference to the Shire Publications book with this title by Martin Robinson, Martin has most kindly given permission for the illustrations on these two pages to be taken from his book (many in the actual publication are, of course in colour) and this co-operation is gratefully acknowledged.

The earliest pillar boxes in the British Isles were those erected in the Channel Islands in 1852 at the suggestion of Anthony Trollope, the novelist, who was a Post Office Surveyor, One of these is still in use at Union Street, St Peter Port, Guernsey, whilst the only other survivor is in the Post Office's collection.

This splendid edifice, looking like a wayside shrine, was built by the local parson to accommodate a letter box at Roux Lench near Evesham, Worcestershire.

This Channel Islands box of 1852 is now in the Post Office's collec-
tion. It was presented by the Guernsey Post Office in 1969 when it
became an independent board.

In 1857 the posting aperture was changed from vertical to horizontal. Only four of these fluted boxes are still in user three of them in Malvern. This one is in Dog Kennel Lane, Shirley, SolihulL

Wall letter boxes

When roadside letter boxes were first introduced in the 1850s they usually served only the population of towns, where it was thought there would be sufficient use to justify their expense. It rapidly became apparent that smaller letter boxes suitable for villages and other rural sites were needed to meet the growing demand from the public. Specimen boxes were made for the surveyor of the Western District of England in 1857 and authorisation was given to site them in villages near Plymouth, Unfortunately none of the earliest wail boxes still exists. Meanwhile an iron wall box was made by Smith & Hawkes for the Birmingham District, and after some improvements others were commissioned.

After reports that the boxes were satisfactory and seeing that they cost only a quarter the price of a pillar box 250 more were made by September 1858. Eleven of these boxes are still in service, the best known of which is at the Old Post Office, Tintagel, Cornwall. The box has an inward-opening flap over the horizontal posting aperture; the royal cipher and crown surmount the words CLEARED AT with a space below for a painted collection plate; and the door is in the centre,

Soon rainwater was reported to be finding its way inside through the flap, damaging letters, so an additional casting was suggested which took the form of a small pediment and hood over the aperture. It is believed that about one hundred of the first standard wall boxes were modified in this way, but only thirteen now survive.

Lamp letter boxes

The type of letterbox most frequently found in country areas is the lamp box, which is usually fixed to a post but sometimes set into a wall. Its great advantage is that it is cheap to produce and install, and it provides adequate posting facilities in areas where the amount of mail posted is relatively small. Lamp boxes are so called because they were originally intended to be affixed to lamp posts, which had begun to appear on the streets as public gas lighting was introduced in the nineteenth century.


of some years away bringing up a family) at Tollgate Junior where she continues to date. Richard served as a Police Constable throughout his 30 years, being the last to work his entire service in Eastbourne (policy changes now require officers to serve at different locations, often as the result of promotion or change of post within the Service). Richard remained as a front line Police Officer continuing to do shift work and to serve the local community in which he lived. Retirement from the Police led to a further five years in a civilian role and as a Scenes of Crime Controller before a health scare about two years ago decided him to retire finally.

Richard and Lucy have two children; Heather is a teacher in Loughborough, while Phillip is studying to become an electrician and lives in Eastbourne.

Richard's interest in stamps began as a schoolboy (quite nomal in the 50s and 60s}) and was coupled with a passion for all things collectable and Railways in all forms: Mods and Rockers and girlfriends took precedence later, but the stamp album stayed with him. When he searched around for a Hobby away from work and Family, a visit to the (now closed) stamp shop in Mark Lane renewed his interest - a few conversations with Jeff Jewson Fleming (his predecessor as Secretary and also a Police Officer at that time) followed, and the rest is history.

Collecting began, as with so many of us, with GB, followed by Hong Kong and Holland, Finally, just to keep him out of mischief, he began a collection of the entire Commonwealth, 1937 -1970 (unmounted mint, for reasons he can't entirely fathom! Both GB and Hong Kong were stopped at 2000 (he was not the only person to call a halt at this date). He is reticent to show at the Club as he feels the Hagner sheets he uses are not really suitable (jmw says "not necessarily so"). As Lucy's parents have retired from Hong Kong to Holland (Eindhoven), much time is spent travelling which means he remains a shadowy figure in the background, but he was persuaded by John & Sarah Griffin (with whom he shares the tasks) to take on the post of Secretary. Richard urges everyone with the interests of the Club at heart (and, it is hoped, that means every member) to support the Committee. He can always be contacted by telephone - if not immediately, leave a message!

WHAT KIND OF ALBUM? John Wright

My first album, probably during the last days of the War, was a chunky green bound STRAND, which came to me via a (much older) cousin who had, I understood, decided to concentrate on airmails - there were probably some stamps in it and the album was perhaps not new when my cousin acquired it.

In the late 1940s my mother took me, on the 88 'bus from Acton Green, up to London's Strand to buy a loose-leaf album. We went to Stanley Gibbons at no. 391 but they had no stock - it was not long after the War and supplies of many things were still scarce. Next door, from Wingfietds, we bought a secondhand green (Gibbons!) Simplex Standard Springback which served me well until I treated myself to a red F G WARWICK peg binder, which I bought with black leaves. "Why black leaves?" would be a very fair question. Well, I had the Phillips & Rang How to Arrange and Write-up a Stamp Collection, to which I have just referred to find the words " the brilliance with which the colours of the stamps stand out against the dark background is comparable with that of fine gems as presented by jewellers against a background of a rich velvet". The next paragraph says " it is as easy to write on black paper as on the more usual white". 1 don't know if I totally believed this, (particularly the bit about the "gems") but thought I would have a go,

Alas, although I tried (I really did) 1 couldn't get on very well with the white ink. I tried for a time to write with black on long, cream, narrow self-adhesive strips, and this actually worked quite well but did have the tendency to make the stamps subservient to the writing-up. Eventually I moved to a SAFE Favorit 14-ring binder, with cream quadrille ruled leaves, on which I try to write in black. There are a number of these multi-ring binders now on the market, a great advantage of them over the Springbacks being that the pages lie flat when opened. Pages are also easy to insert / remove, as they of course are with the Springbacks. I use PRINZ black strips - not so much for the "jewel-like" effect but because perforations show up with these far more clearly that they


do on a white ground.

I have never used loose-leaf albums with printed pages, very popular these days, with a number even having mounts in place. I regard these as being rather restrictive in that it is not easy to show, for example, a block or anything else for which there is not a pre-determined position. They also have the disadvantage of screaming out where there is a gap! But they undoubtedly make it straightforward to produce an attractive page. A further limitation is that these pages often contain limited information on the stamps -perhaps just the date of issue and a catalogue number - while I feel that some more detail is needed, particularly with commemorative issues.

Another possibility is leaves, black or white (and probably quite sturdy) with transparent strips fastened across the whole width of the page - these pages are available with various formats, 2, 3, 4, .... strips to a page, which one can "mix and match". Again these can be a little restrictive but have the huge advantage of allowing stamps to be moved around almost at will (and they don't show the gaps!). Neatly trimmed strips of paper (written or typed) can then be inserted to give details of the stamps appearing alongside.

A further option is an Exhibition Case instead of an album - these store the leaves (probably kept in protectors) freely and are popular if one wishes to have material ready for display or competition. Frank Godden make a couple of these and there may well be others.

So? Which type of album should you use? Stamp Collecting is a hobby with no rules - you collect what you want, house it as you choose, display to others or not entirely at your choice. Few these days use bound, printed albums (for one thing, these make it extremely difficult to display to more than a couple of people at a time). Loose leaf, of some kind, seems to be the answer. Pre-printed, or will you "write-up" yourself? If pen and ink, make sure the ink will not "feather" on the paper. If you intend to type (and I use the word in its most general form!) make sure that your machine will cope with the paper you intend to use. Of course, if you intend to enter competitions, things are a bit different, but that aspect is not the subject of this brief article.