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44 FEBRUARY 2016 http://www.stampandcoin.co.uk

British Birds

8 August

The second wholly thematic set was birds. At the insistence of

the Postmaster General, Tony Benn, they were to be issued

as a se-tenant block of four stamps. At one point it was to

have been six stamps, but the Post Office decided to revert to the

original plan after complaints that private First Day Covers had

been designed for just four stamps. The artist, J. Norris Wood,

wished to portray four familiar garden birds, but the Stamp

Advisory Committee decided otherwise and included one of his

‘spare’ designs of a Black-headed Gull. As with the Landscapes issue,

Wood’s birds are being watched by a giant white cameo of the Queen.

These stamps are best known for their multiple colour shifts and

missing colours. They were printed in an unprecedented eight colours,

in two printings of four colours each: uncharted waters for Harrisons.

British Technology

19 September

The third thematic set was perhaps the most challenging. The Post

Office provided a hint of what was required in a list of possible subjects

including the recently built Severn Bridge and the electrification of the

Euston-Manchester line. The winning designers were Andrew Restall,

an experienced stamp designer, and the husband-and-wife team of

David and Ann Gillespie (although only the former is credited on

the stamps). The Gillespie stamps, with even larger Cameo heads, are

uncompromisingly modern in Carnaby Street colours, especially the

6d which shows a row of four Mini Minors and an E-type Jaguar (free

advertising which evoked a protest from Ford). The Restall designs,

in darker colours, of a hovercraft and a nuclear reactor were destined

for the higher values. Once again this set is best known for its missing

colours. In one the E-type Jaguar has the stamp to itself; in another it

has accelerated away taking the designer’s name with it.

Battle of Hastings

14 October

The original idea had been to offer this issue for a children’s competition. When that idea was

transferred to the first Christmas stamps, the commission was given instead to David Gentleman.

Gentleman based his stamps on the Bayeux Tapestry but using woodcuts instead of the embroidery

of the original. Instead of the planned single 4d stamp he produced a se-tenant strip of six that

showed the surging progress of the battle resulting in the death of King Harold on the fifth stamp

with that famous arrow in his eye. Although not an exact copy of the Tapestry it has, in Gentleman’s

words, the same ‘workmanlike and unfussed-over spirit’. He deliberately overprinted the engraved

lines without registering the colours precisely so that any accidental movement of the colours

during printing should seem intentional and part of the design. This was just as well because this

strip required no less than nine colours. The Queen’s head was printed in gold on both the 6d and

the 1/3 values. There was no particular reason to do this and it might have been a try-out for the

Christmas stamps. On the 1/3 stamp the Queen faces right for the first time on a British stamp.Christmas stamps. On the 1/3 stamp the Queen faces right for the first time on a British stamp.Christmas stamps. On the 1/3 stamp the Queen faces right for the first time on a British stamp.

GB stamps

The British Birds set

produced many printing

errors, eagerly sought by

collectors today

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