Signed, sealed and delivered - when Victoria went viral
Published 2 months ago • 15 min read
On the first page of the first album, one stamp sat proudly in the centre. It was the only stamp on the page. It was special. It was a Penny Black.
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The Breezer - the joyride for a curious mind: A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me discovering historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. Add to that updates relating to the podcast, a touch of humour and a dash of "lots more".27th April 2025.
Happy Sunday! One of my fondest memories as a young child was visiting Gran and Grandpa. Gran was a continuous supply of entertainment. Who knew that a 1960s twin-tub washing machine could be so much fun? But Grandpa had something special, almost mystical - a stamp collection. When you opened one of his many albums, each page revealed a treasure trove, a cornucopia of colour, which triggered hours of questioning, “why is this?…” why is that?….” On the first page of the first album, one stamp sat proudly in the centre. It was the only stamp on the page. It was special. It was a Penny Black.
The Penny Black – the world’s first adhesive postage stamp. Notice the letters in the bottom left and right corners: These denote the position on the printed sheet. 20 rows (left: A to T) and 12 columns (right: A to L). This stamp is therefore from row 13, column 8.
The Penny Black, the world’s first adhesive postage stamp, was issued 185 years ago this Thursday, 1 May 1840. Its introduction was the culmination of 324 years evolution from Henry VIII’s original Royal Mail in 1516. The early postal system was exclusive to royalty and the Government. It wasn’t until July 1635 that Charles I extended its availability to the general public. By 1840, the postal service had become extremely complicated to administer. Postage was charged according to distance and the number of sheets in the package. The service was also prohibitively expensive, placing it out of the reach of the working classes. Social reformer Roland Hill convinced the Government and Queen Victoria that a standard low fee for postage would simplify the process, regardless of distance and size. In addition, it would allow more people to enjoy the service. Hill’s other significant change was to introduce the ‘sender prepayment’. Under the old system, where each letter was charged individually, it was too complicated to ask the sender to pay, so the recipient would pay once the journey had actually been completed. That all changed with the Penny Black.
The stamp itself features a profile of Queen Victoria. The custom of issuing stamps in the UK with the Monarch of the day’s profile as the centrepiece has remained ever since. The Penny Black was supplied to postal clerks in sheets of 240 stamps. A buyer would ask for a certain quantity of stamps, and the clerk would cut out the requested amount with a pair of scissors. The Penny Black had no perforations. A philatelist’s collection is not complete without a Penny Black. Of the 68 million Penny Blacks printed between 1840 to 1841, only about 1.3 million still exist today. However, there are estimated to be 60 million philatelists worldwide, with 20 million in China alone. Broadly speaking, that’s one Penny Black for every 45 philatelists, which might help to explain its current market value.
Penny Black, block of six. Notice the lettering…
In 1991, Harmer Auctions SA, a Swiss satellite of the renowned philatelic auction house Harmers of London, sold a Penny Black for a world record £1.4 million (USD 2.4 million). It featured on a first-day cover which was posted on 2 May 1840. Although the Penny Black was formally issued the day before, it wasn’t actually valid for use until 6 May 1840. It is the earliest known posted envelope bearing a prepaid stamp. In 2021, Sotheby’s offered for auction the first ever Penny Black printed (ie plate 1a, position A-1). They valued the stamp at between £4-6 million. It featured on what is thought to be the world’s most significant philatelic artefact. The Wallace Document, a piece of card signed and notated by Robert Wallace MP, a central figure in UK postal reform, was dated 10 April 1840, well before the original first issue. At the time of the auction, the Wallace Document was owned by the distinguished philatelist Alan Holyoake. The specimen failed to reach its reserve price at auction, likely in the region of £4 million. Its whereabouts today are not clear.
Out of Curiosity…
Since the Penny Black was the world’s first adhesive postage stamp, there was no need to identify its country of origin. As other nations started to issue their own stamps, the Universal Postal Union Convention (the treaty governing international mail, established in 1874) required that every issuing country print its name on all stamps. Since the United Kingdom had invented the postage stamp, it was granted an exemption from this requirement. This convention still stands today.
As it turned out, the Penny Black was short-lived, less than a year in fact. The colour black caused a problem. When an envelope passed through postal depots, a hand stamp would apply a red ‘cancellation’ mark to the stamp to indicate that it had been used. The British postal authorities found that red cancellation marks on the Penny Black stamps could be scraped off, allowing people to reuse the stamps fraudulently. To prevent this, they introduced the Penny Red in February 1841. With the new red stamps, black ink could be used for cancellations, which was much harder to erase.
Penny Black with red cancellation & Penny Red with black cancellation.
New Podcast Episode… coming up
The Last Flight out
Ba Van Nguyen ditches his Chinook, 29 April 1975, South China Sea.
The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 signalled the end of a violent and bloody war in Vietnam. US President Richard Nixon signed the agreement alongside representatives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (north), the Republic of Vietnam (south) and the communist Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, better known as the Viet Cong. Nixon had little confidence that the agreement would hold, but his priority was to facilitate a secure American exit from Vietnam. By 29 March 1973, the last US combat troops had left. At that point, the only Americans left in Vietnam - mostly in Saigon - were diplomatic staff, personnel providing economic and humanitarian aid, and a small group of US Marines assigned to protect the embassy and other US facilities. And then the Watergate scandal erupted. After President Nixon resigned in August 1974, the North Vietnamese launched attacks on the remaining areas under South Vietnamese control. The offensive, which started in early March 1975, was devastating. By the end of April, the North Vietnamese were advancing on Saigon. The rapid North Vietnamese advance eliminated any chance of an orderly evacuation. Images of evacuees scrambling onto rooftops to board Huey helicopters at the US Embassy and a CIA building remain etched in memory. These were the scenes leading up to the fall of Saigon, fifty years ago this Wednesday, 30 April 1975. The fate of the South Vietnamese military - who had fought alongside US troops since Operation Rolling Thunder marked the arrival of American combat forces in March 1965 - received far less attention. By April 29th, the chain of command throughout the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) had collapsed. Senior officers had fled, leaving soldiers to desert to the North Vietnamese or melt into the civilian population in Saigon. The situation was the same in the South Vietnamese Air Force. It was every man and woman from themselves.
Ba Van Nguyen was a Major and pilot in the South Vietnamese Air Force at the time Saigon fell to the North. Ba and his family would not forget 29 April 1975 in a hurry. Ba’s superior officers had disappeared; he would later learn they had already left Vietnam with their families. He and his remaining crew had been abandoned. A course of action was agreed. The remaining pilots would prioritise rescuing their families. Ba commandeered a Chinook helicopter from Tan Son Nhat Airport and flew to a small suburb in south Saigon where his family had been staying. He landed the twin-rotor leviathan on the local playground, scattering the gathering crowds and loose-fitting tin roof tops along the way. Within three minutes, his family had scurried on board the Chinook, and they were airborne. More tin roofs blew away as Ba headed out into the South China Sea. Pilots will tell you that you never take off without confirmation of where you are going to land. Ba was flying across open sea, low on fuel, family on board, no emergency buoyancy aids and nowhere to land. His only hope was to find a US ship that could accommodate a Chinook landing on deck… quickly. The United States Seventh Fleet was stationed in the South China Sea, part of Operation Frequent Wind, the final attempt to rescue US civilians and ‘at-risk’ South Vietnamese fleeing Saigon. Fortunately for Ba, he spotted a frigate cruising below and approached it cautiously. The USS Kirk was hunting for - and shooting down - North Vietnamese jet fighters. If they mistook the Chinook’s identity, Ba and his family might have been shot out of the sky.
USS Kirk
As the Chinook closed in, Ba’s wife waved their eight-month-old baby, Mina, in front of one of the small Chinook windows to show they were friendly and needed help. Captain Paul Jacobs gave permission for the helicopter to approach. The Chinook was too big to land on the frigate. Ba had to fly diagonally backwards over the moving USS Kirk at a height of about 15 feet above the deck. Once steadily overhead, Ba gave the instruction for his wife and children to jump into the waiting arms of USS Kirk crew. I was delighted and privileged to talk recently with Miki Nguyen, son of Ba Van Nguyen. Miki was six and a half when his father told him to jump off the Chinook onto the deck of the USS Kirk. Miki tells the story of his family’s extraordinary escape that day, 50 years ago this Tuesday, 29 April 1975, with such humility and humour. He also talks about his father’s predicament once the rest of the family was safely on the USS Kirk: He had to ditch the giant Chinook in the South China Sea alone.
Ba Van Nguyen prepares to ditch his Chinook
I hope you get a chance to find out what happened to Ba in the new podcast episode, The Last Flight Out, going live this Tuesday on the 50th anniversary of his extraordinary feat. Just head over to BattingtheBreeze.com on Tuesday, any time after 08:00 Eastern Standard Time, where you will find access to the new episode.
Dates with History
Tuesday…
When Captain James Cook set out on his first voyage in August 1768, his stated mission was to observe the 1769 Transit of Venus across the Sun. By measuring how long it took Venus to cross the Sun from various locations around the world, scientists were able to calculate the distance between the Earth and the Sun with greater accuracy. The more precisely this distance could be measured, the more accurately astronomers could map the stars - a crucial factor for navigation at the time. There was a more secretive secondary goal for Cook’s trip. He was to search for ‘Terra Australis Incognita” (‘unknown southern land’) a controversial term that referred to a hypothetical continent believed to exist in the southern hemisphere. The term is controversial because of the word ‘unknown’. Aboriginal Australians had ‘known’ for over 50,000 years before Cook’s arrival. Cook’s arrival at Botany Bay 255 years ago this Tuesday, 29 April 1770, did however mark the first recorded European landing on the east coast of the Australian continent.
Captain Cook lands at Botany Bay, 29 April 1770. Painting by E. Phillips Fox, 1902.
Out of Curiosity…
Captain Cook observed the Transit of Venus in 1769 from a small fort on the north coast of Matavai Bay, Tahiti. Today, the area is known as Point Venus.
Friday…
When Charles II was invited to the English throne in 1660 after the English Civil Wars and a failed attempt at republicanism, he was keen to strengthen England’s influence overseas. The European powers - particularly the English, French and Dutch - were engaged in a land-grab across many parts of the World, including North America. By 1670, England had established colonies along the East Coast of North America, from the state of Carolina in the south to New Hampshire in the north. However, apart from a small number of settlements in Newfoundland, England had little presence in the area that today defines Canada. The problem for Charles II was that the fur trade was booming in the North, and the French held a monopoly over it. Wealthy Europeans had developed an appetite for garments made from beaver, mink, ermine and sable, and Charles wanted a share of that trade. The English had established a system of royal charters to aid colonial expansion. These charters were essentially state-backed monopolies. The East India Company had pioneered the model in 1600, and Charles II was about to repeat the exercise. Three hundred and fifty-five years ago this Friday, 2 May 1670, Charles II granted a royal charter to the Hudson Bay Company*. The charter granted exclusive rights to trade, land ownership and resources across 1.5 million square miles around Hudson Bay, stretching down into the northern states of today’s United States. ‘Rupert’s Land’ survived for 200 years until it was formally transferred to the Dominion of Canada in 1870. * …officially called The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay.
Rupert’s Land, 1670 to 1870.
Out of Curiosity…
The royal charter granted to the Hudson Bay Company disregarded any rights of the indigenous First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities. First Nations peoples had occupied the area described by the charter for over 20,000 years. In our podcast episode Awakening in the Northwest Territories, I talked with Alastair Henry, who spent a couple of years living with a First Nations community in Lutsel K’e, Northwest Territories. Alastair shared his experiences with compassion and humour.
By the Way
Rupert Brooke was an English poet, born in 1887 and best remembered for his collection of war sonnets. The sonnets portray war in an idealistic light, reflecting the romantic ideas of adventure and chivalry that instilled into young men in England leading up to World War I. Brooke’s most enduring poem is The Soldier, written after he had enlisted. The Soldier, published in 1814, is the embodiment of the romantic notion of dying for your country, of the belief that death is a noble act, not a tragedy. At the time of writing, Brooke had not yet experienced the horrors of war - the brutality, inhumanity, mutilation and suffering. Ironically, on his way to fight at Gallipoli in 1915, Brooke contracted blood poisoning. It was only two days before the fighting at Gallipoli started that he died on a hospital ship off the Greek island of Skyros. Brooke was 27 years old. He would never experience the true horror of war. The Times newspaper published an obituary for Brooke 110 years ago yesterday, 26 April 1915, incorrectly reporting the cause of death:
”We regret to record the death, on April 23, Lemnos, from the effects of sunstroke, of Rupert Brooke, the poet, a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Division.”
Much of the obituary was written by Winston Churchill who noted…
“The voice has been swiftly stilled. Only the echoes and the memory remain; but they will linger.”
Rupert Brooke, WW1 Officer, 1914.
Out of curiosity…
Brooke’s fellow war poets, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, recorded a very different version of World War I. For them, there was no romanticism. They wrote of the “passing bells for these who die as cattle” and of the recurring nightmares of a fellow soldier’s death, that “he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning”. They highlighted the dehumanisation of the battlefield, “Young faces bleared with blood, sucked down into the mud” and of despair, “He put a bullet through his brain, No one spoke of him again”. Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon both served on the Western Front in northern France and were each awarded the Military Cross for bravery. Owen died on the battlefield seven days before the Armistice that ended the war in November 1918. Sassoon died at the age of 80 in 1967.
THE SOLDIER
”If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.”
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
RUPERT BROOKE, 1914
Question of the Week
Les Miserables is a novel commonly believed to be set during the French Revolution in 1789. In fact, it starts in 1815, when Napoleon’s defeat led to the restoration of the monarchy. 'Les Mis' climaxes with the June Rebellion of 1832 in Paris, when the death of the high-profile monarchy critic General Lamarque triggers the mobilisation of republican students and workers who man the barricades in protest. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a novel set in 15th century Paris. The disfigured bell-ringer Quasimodo develops a soft spot for Esmerelda who once showed him kindness. When she is framed for the attempted murder of her lover, Phoebus, Quasimodo provides her with refuge in Notre-Dame de Paris. Esmerelda is then betrayed by Quasimodo’s guardian, Archdeacon Claude Frollo, which ultimately leads to her execution. In return, Quasimodo kills Frollo and vanishes. What do these two stories based in Paris have in common?
And Finally…
29 April - from mega sausages to megaflashes.
According to Guinness World Records, 30 years ago this Tuesday, 29 April 1995, M&M Meat Shops and Schneider Foods joined forces to construct the world’s longest sausage, 28.8 miles long. The feat involved linking together 315,000 standard sausages which were later separated and sold for charity. The record remained until 2014, when two companies in Romania beat it by an extra 10 miles, a total length of 38.99 miles.
Guinness World Records was active again on the same day 25 years later, 29 April 2020, when they confirmed the world’s longest single lightning flash.
The ‘megaflash’ straddled the three US states of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi and was measured by specialist satellite lightning mapping equipment. The record-breaking flash covered a horizontal distance of 477 miles.
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Steve
HOST & CHIEF STORY HUNTER
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Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame were both written by French poet and novelist Victor Hugo. These novels are Hugo’s most enduring works. Hugo is supposed to have practised a rather bizarre method for reducing writer’s block: He would ask his servants to remove all his clothes and not return them until the end of the day. As he couldn’t then leave the room, he would be forced to concentrate on his writing. Victor Hugo died 140 years ago this Friday, 2 May 1885. It occurs to me while writing this that you may have other suggestions for commonalities that bind the two novels - if so, feel free to share them with me.
ATTRIBUTIONS
The Penny Black – the world’s first adhesive postage stamp. Notice the letters in the bottom left and right corners: These denote the position on the printed sheet. 20 rows (left: A to T) and 12 columns (right: A to L). This stamp is therefore from row 13, column 8: General Post Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Penny Black, block of six. Notice the lettering…: General Post Office, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Penny Red with black cancellation stamp: Perkins Bacon, London, UK for British Post Office, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Penny Black with red cancellation stamp: Rosser1954, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Captain Cook lands at Botany Bay, 29 April 1770. Painting by E. Phillips Fox, 1902: E. Phillips Fox, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.