Useful Objects

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best but who would have thought that there is controversy on who invented this useful object.  The Norwegians claim it on this stamp of the 1999 set 'Norwegian Inventions' and during the second world war it was their symbol of resistance to the Nazis. The (more interesting than you would think) story of the paper clip here    But lets go to a room where there are no paper clips

1983 Women "At Home"

 although then again you may use them to clip some recipes together.  Is this a cooking lesson or breakfast?  I don't know but there is a full table, coffee, milk, egg, preserves, grapes, flowers and a kilner jar.  I wonder if there is a stamp somewhere celebrating the kilner jar, they always take me back to my childhood and my mother bottling fruits.  But for other household utensils travel to Romania whose strong folk traditions

1982 "Household Utensils"

mean that each rural area has its own characteristic. Wood and ceramics become both beautiful and practical. Left is a jug and plate from Vama-Maramurs, and wooden churn and pail from North Moldavia.

Ceramic Plates from Leheceni-Crisana

Ceramic bowl and pot from Marginea-Suceava

Wooden tubs from Hunedoora, Transylvania and Suceava in Moldavia.

Lastly objects that cross from merely practical to be art, the Rio Grande blankets featured on

2005 - Rio Grande blankets

the 5th of the aptly named American Treasures series.

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamps theme of "Useful or Practical Things"

Wedding Days

An entry to Sepia Saturday. "Using old images as prompts for new reflections"

Wedding of William Swindlehurst and Isabelle Hewitt

 The bride and groom are making a run for it in this photo, no gently floating confetti like at today's weddings but some serious rice throwing, no wonder William is fending it off with his bowler hat.  I have the man by the bush with the large moustache to the left down as the thrower. He looks to be enjoying the moment.  The children are all gathered at the far left.  At this point as was going to show a postcard of of the church path entrance but it is hiding somewhere in my collection so I will resort to a photograph

Beetham Church photo by Anne Bowker

of the floral archway of Beetham Church. The old postcard I have shows the archway much more luxuriant and completely covered by growth but this is what it looks like at the beginning of the 21st century rather than the 20th.  Getting back to my wedding postcards; the happy couple do not travel far for the wedding breakfast

William and Isabelle Swindlehurst

and pose in a more traditional and formal way at Hazelslack Tower Farm and like the church arch there are climbing roses.  I never met Aunt Bell but my Grandmother must have been fond of her because she had a lot of photos of her in her collection. Lastly another slightly informal portrait

The Hewitts

 of Isabelle with her brother whose name I do not know but I find it a charming photo, both with white gloves, her hand on his shoulder and his around her.  Meanwhile half seen in the doorway is the flat capped boy from the church photo.   

Visit Åland

I'll be paddling in the north sea for the next couple of weeks on holiday on the coast of Suffolk but this postcard person is paddling in the Baltic Sea.  Maybe one year I will do this too.  For this year's Europa theme of "Visit" the Åland Islands issued this picture as their stamp.  The photo was shot at the old Kobba klintar pilot station, the island is by the inlet of the western harbour of Mariehamn. It is considered one of the most beautiful places of Åland and if the flag is flying then the cafe is open and you can look at the views with coffee and cake.  There may be a cruise ship or ferry sailing past out of the harbour.

My postcrossing friend Eeva sent the card with a first day cancel of Mariehamn and the logo of Visit Åland which is the Åland flag.

Thank you Eeva, wishing you warm Summer paddling.   

Just Wondering

Each stamp tells a story of the country, its dominant ideology, culture and national identity but sometimes you get stamps that as this week's Sunday Stamps theme says "leaves you wondering what it is" and what it is saying so lets discover.

I can see it is some sort of needlework but happily this stamp gives lots of other clues, although one at first may wonder where Hrvatska is as most people know it as Croatia.  It also gives its date of issue (2010) so a visit to the Universal Postal Union site says it is a set of 4 Croatian Ethnographic Heritage set but nothing else. Looking for that title to tell me more, zilch,  I do discover on the first search page that there have been new Ethnographic Museums opened in Dubrovnik and Split, appropriate for a country just a independent republic in 1991.  But that still did not help me know what Dubrovacko Primorje was but you always know on the internet there will be an enthusiast on a blog somewhere. I wasn't disappointed because Lina's Land had been taking some embroidery lessons on the stitches of the national costume of this area north west of Dubrovnik and shows some of the beautiful embroidered scarves here.

Well that is one mystery partially solved but there is another that will be for every unknown. The stamp came in a bundle of used stamps on paper from all over the world but this one had been on a postcard, of which now only the small corner with the stamps on remained. Nooooo

 A glimpse of an unknown Croatian town

I recognised the word Orphiuchus on this stamp as years ago I'd read a book called The Ophiuchi Hotline whose title for some unknown reason had stuck in my mind so I knew it was a star system, but what I didn't know was what this stamp was. The stamp of course is a lot smaller than this scan and only when I discovered that the constellation is represented by a man grasping a snake did I go oh yes I see that. Neither did I know it was the 13th sign of the zodiac in an alternative 14th Zodiac system in Astrology. Don't panic if you are born between Nov 29-Dec 17 most still  go for the well known 12.  I discovered however that Sri Lanka  issued 16 constellations in their 2007 definitive set.

Lastly an old stamp I don't have a clue about. An alphabet I am not familiar with but think the stamp is Bulgaria but beyond that, nada. The significance of the date 1915 and 1917 in the banner and in the corners, nope not that either.  I wonder who she is.

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamp theme of "stamps that leave you wondering" 

Pioneers

2003 "Extreme Endeavours" series

The untimely death of astronaut Sally Ride this week made me think of other women pioneers so here is the record breaking aviator Amy Johnson (1903-41).  With only 50 hours of flying experience she made the first woman's solo flight from England to Australia, taking 17 days. Further record-breaking flights acorss Siberia, the Atlantic and solo to Cape Town followed. Amy Johnson disappeared over the Thames estuary in January 1941 ferrying an aeroplane for the Air Ministry in World War Two.  In bad weather and running out of fuel she drowned after bailing out. There is a mystery of her death, was she on a secret mission for the air ministry or was she shot down by coastal defence guns after giving the wrong identification code of the day?

Here she is with her Gypsy Moth waiting to take off from Croydon airport in 1930 which was where international  flights came in and out of London. The airport closed in 1959, it had no room to expand, and all that remains are the terminal buildings, the control tower  (which houses the visitors centre) and the Aerodrome Hotel.  I wonder if business travellers or tourists stay there now, there are no aeroplanes

or rocket launchers. A  'smiler' stamp and cancel celebrates the 40th anniversary of the moon landing and a cancel for the first commercial supersonic flight from Heathrow (the airport which replaced Croydon) is on the Charles Babbage stamp. The latter was a 1991 commemoration of his birth centenary.  Babbage (1791-1871) and his Difference Engine which he later called an Analytical Engine is considered a computer pioneer in his quest to store data and then reuse the information to add more.

I like the whimsy of the cover, the Mars 'postage stamp' at the bottom and on the back there are stamps for a Mars Tourist visa, the moon station and the International Space Station and if you have enough money to go into space the $5000 Earth Tax mentioned there would be a snip.

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamps

A Century

An entry to Sepia Saturday. "Using old images as prompts for new reflections"

As a cricket fan of course I'm going for that option for this week's theme of  "sports which won't be seen at the Olympic Games", although it could be glanced for a few seconds right of at the start of  the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympiad in the green  fields recreated in the stadium.   But lets go back to the start of the 20th century with this team and what do I see. Well it seems that not everyone has turned up in their whites for the photo, something that will no doubt bring back memories of forgetting school sports bags for some of us who hadn't checked their school timetable. The boy on the left has at least remembered his cricket boots or perhaps they have played a practice match.  For those not familiar with the game the wicket keeper sits gloved in the middle, if I was going to make a sweeping generalisation it would be that wicket-keepers tend to be 'characters' possibly because of the specialisation and responsibility of the role.  I would guess that the man wearing the striped tie n the photo and sporting a Nietzsche type moustache is the captain.  We can see the two umpires who in their white long coats who will make all the decisions on the field.  The wiry and slightly dishevelled man third in from the right at the back can be nothing else but a bowler, whether fast or slow who knows but I can imagine him toiling for a wicket on a hot summers day.  I can't make out the symbols on those men who are wearing cricket caps rather than the everyday flat caps so we will never know which team it is

The card was sent from Congleton in Cheshire and I thought maybe that may be the team but unfortunately I discovered that the one that resides there was not started until the 1930s. The card was sent to my Grandmother from her friend on the 15th May 1911 and says "Thank very much for the parcel received which we enjoyed immense.  Send me a bit of the lily of the valley if you have time to get any for us.  Tell Nannie I am sending the parcel off the same time I post this ".  My grandmother often seemed to send flowers of the season to friends and family and a lot of the cards she kept send thanks for their receipt.. I wonder if she sent them on the train or by post.

But back to the cricket, I have happy memories of coming across a village cricket game by chance while on holiday in England, sitting talking to the locals and watching the to and fro of the  match while the sun shines down.  Whether watching professional or amateur matches cricket take time, hey this is a game that breaks for lunch and tea, so a good lot of eating and drinking goes on during the day for the spectators and for   

"Picnic scene at Freshwater" - Photo from the Powerhouse Museum Collection, Australia

that reason this photo is irresistible, although the accent is on the picnic and the cricket accoutrements at the back are just there for a bit of activity on a trip to the countryside, or as it is in Australia I suppose I should call it bush. The billy can at the front has "Freshwater 1895" (with the painted 9 the wrong way round), which I think is rather wonderful, the place and time frozen in time for this gathering of friends.  The Powerhouse Museum has done a short montage of close ups of a few of the elements of the photo here (It took a while to load for me but it may be my connection today).  The photo being Australian brings to mind that the great rivalry of international test matches is between Australia and England

"The Queenslander,", Dec 13, 1928 (From the State Library of Queensland)

 and here is the English lion wearing a cap like the men in the postcard and the kangaroo wearing the famous Australian baggy cap. The lion is at the top of the cricket see-saw which was prophetic as England won the series when they toured  there in 1928/9 and retaining the Ashes.

Faster, Higher, Stronger

GB 1980 "Sports Centenaries"

 I was going to illustrate the Olympic motto of "faster, higher, stronger" but though I can illustrate the first

two I can't find any weightlifting stamps in my collection so just imagine that one. Just like imagining the Olympic rings on the US stamp. A dispute meant that the International Olympic Committee prevented USPS from using them so they they came up with five overlapping five pointed stars instead.

This year's Olympic Games will be the third held in London  

"Globe and Laurel Leaf"

  but those of 1948 are generally referred to the 'Austerity Games' but despite London still having bombed out buildings, post-war rationing and in dire economic conditions they turned out a great success.

"Speed"

No new venues were built and the athletes were housed in existing buildings

"Olympic Symbols"

59 nations took part and the USA headed the medal table.  GB won 3 golds, 14 silver and 6 bronze

"Winged Victory"

This year 216 nations will come to London and I look forward to see the medals and stories unfold. 

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamps theme - Olympics