Sand and Sea

1988: The Sea

I won't be around for next week's se-tenant theme so thought I'd take the opportunity to  include this delightful example. The mermaid label says "Keep the Sea Clean".  The artist, Oscar Bonnevalle, takes us on a trip along the Belgium coast. Bonnevalle, a philatelic enthusiast, produced 155 stamps over his lifetime and was commemorated on a Belgium stamp in 1996.

The first stamp shows the Ostend registered 0.148 'Snipe' trawler heading out to sea and and the horse is interesting for Belgium must be the only place in the world where fishermen trawl for shrimp on horseback. Next the Zeebrugge registered trawler Asannot passes those things familiar on northern European beaches, the windbreak. The third stamp shows a cross-channel ferry, the last far out in the distance a container ship passes by while spotted redshank and oyster-catchers patrol the beach

All the familiar objects of beach life also appear on the 2007 GB set 'Beside the Seaside'.

The beach huts shown on the stamp are rather plain but possibly the most famous in England are those in Southwold, Suffolk with their little verandas that rarely come up for sale but when they do can cost as much as a house.

Lets  take it easy and watch the children being taken for a ride on the donkeys unfortunately there is a stamp missing from my set which is the ice cream cone so I can't offer you one of those.

And lastly one of the most famous beaches in the world, Bondi, where sunshine is guaranteed maybe that is why the group on the left is sheltering under a very small umberalla. The stamp is from the 2007  'Nostalgic Tourism' series showing tourist posters from the 1930s. The one shown is "At the Beach" by the prolific Percy Trompf who designed and painted thousands of posters and won many prizes.

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamps