London Meeting, Saturday 11th. February 2006

Members’ Choices of Letter “H”.

This meeting had been fixed way back in the spring of last year, but as it got nearer the date, I began to dread that we would have hardly anybody there, due to some of our ‘Regulars’ being abroad on holiday and others being temporarily hospitalised. However on the day, I was relieved to find that there were 12 of us present, and that 11 of us had brought displays along – and they turned out to have a wide variety of topics ! They were:-

Finland - Helsinki: a) A wide variety of postcards of the city showing many well-known landmarks and buildings; b) A range of covers addressed to Helsinki, many of them with village postmarks; c) The FDC for the 1952 Olympic Games held in Helsinki.

Faroes - Various aspects of the word Hestur (= Horse !); a) The ‘Horse’ stamps of 1993; b) The Festival of “Ólavsøka” which is held on July 27th each year with horses ridden in the procession through the town; c) The horse-races held the following day with photographs showing the hectic racing and the freight container which has been converted into the Steward’s Room; d) An FDC for the stamps for the island of Hestur – issued in 1987; e) Photos and postal items connected with the island: the “Lost-At-Sea” memorial, the church, the Post Office (open for 1 hour on 3 days a week !) – it has no cancel as mail is postmarked in Tórshavn, but it does have a Parcel Card label, and we also saw a selection of mail-bag labels with the island’s name.

Finland - The Finnish bank-note and stamp designer Signe Hammersten Jansson (1882 – 1970): She had been a prolific designer of book covers and bank-notes, and then she took up stamp design, producing many stamps which were engraved between 1929 and 1960. These showed a wide range of topics connected with Finnish life, history and culture. She was also the mother of Tove Jansson, the well-known author of the “Moomin” books for children. In 1985 the Finnish Post office issued a miniature sheet showing various historical bank-notes, which included her 50-mark note.

Sweden - A wide range of stamps and covers, with ‘H’: ‘Hällristningar’ (Rock carvings), Helicopter mail, Hjälmar Söderberg, Hjälmar Branting, ‘Freedom from Hunger’, Nils Holgersson, ‘Högertrafik’ (the change over to driving on the right in 1967 !), Hermelins Foss (waterfall), Hedgehog, Forge-Hearth, Horse-Drawn Tram (1977), two animal stamps (‘Hestur’ = Horse and Hjört = Deer), the Hälsingland set of 5 booklet stamps from 1980, and many others.

Denmark - Humourous postcards in 2 main groups: a) an unusual set of 9 cards, which were supplied to young men and women doing their National Service in the Danish forces in the 1950s – they seem to have been issued by the Danish equivalent of the NAAFI and showed young recruits going through all the adventures and mishaps of basic training, “square-bashing” and spud-peeling ! Two of the cards had been sent by Tony’s wife (when she was a Lieutenant in the Royal Danish Air Force) to a friend, who later donated them to Tony’s collection !; b) The Danish Post Office’s Humour postcards (which Bob Johnson has shown in ‘Danish Notes’ and various articles) which show the difficulties that postmen can experience with badly-labelled mail boxes, incorrectly addressed mail, dogs attacking postmen, etc.

Norway - The county of Hordaland (of which Bergen is the capital): a very wide selection of the ships’ travelling post office mail from this area, all beautifully written up, and also illustrated by maps showing the routes which they served. Hardanger – Sunnhordland, Hardanger – Søndhordlands Posteksp., Lindås – Masfjord, Bergen – Manger, Midhordland Posteksp., Bergen – Fitjar, Indre Nordhordlands Posteksp., Bergen – Nordhordlands Posteksp., and many others.

Finland - Helsinki (but from a different angle !): It was not even the capital of Finland until 1821 as Turku / Åbo was larger and the seat of provincial government. During the Russian period even the city’s cancel did not begin with an ‘H’ as there is no such letter in the Cyrillic alphabet – they called it ‘Gelsingfors’ – as we saw on a fine cover from 1844 with a straight-line marking; next came a fine 1867 cover with 2 x 20 pennia stamps with virtually all their roulettes still intact !; the 5 different sets of ‘Helsingfors Stadtpost’ stamps; covers used on the last day of valid use of the ‘Lion’ stamps – January 13th 1901; World War 1 censorship (in Cyrillic only !); covers with the special stamps ONLY available at Stamp Exhibitions (by buying an entrance ticket !): “Helsinki Postal Exhibition 1948”, “Finlandia 1956”, “Finlandia 1960”, an “Olympic Games” cover from 1952, “40th Anniversary of Independence – 1957”, and 1957 Commemorative for Sibelius’s death.

a) Danish Christmas seals, which were an idea of Einar Holbøll in 1904, in a range of earlies to year 1908, then (also mounted) the eighth year of every following decade, with extra of the 1927 issue, the year of his death, when his portrait was featured on the issue. b) Sweden, with their less well-known ‘Health Charity’ seals also first issued at Christmas 1904 then a similar range of years to the Danish, though the Swedes mark theirs with a pair of years.

Norway - A wide range of beautiful postcards and covers, all connected with ships, their mail and occasional disasters: a) The “Hera” sinking which took place between Hammerfest and Honningsvaag; b) the “Kong Harald”; c) a “Hull Ship Letter” with a 4 sk. Stamp from 1867, and another from 1902; d) A letter marked “Via Hull Steamer” and 2 letters marked “Paquebot Hull”; e) Other TPO mail with Hardanger Posteksp., Hardanger – Søndhordlands Posteksp., Søndre Helgeland and Nordre Helgeland and the smaller Hjælsetruten which ran between Ålesund, Molde and Hjelset from 1910 until 1919.

Finland - Helsinki – St. Petersburg TPO railway cancels, with examples of the different ‘Station Numbers’ which were inserted into the cancel as the train moved along its route – this often caused trouble if they had become damaged, or in very cold weather when the postal sorter had very cold fingers, and resulted in the so-called “floating numbers” when the Number slug was applied separately, sometimes a few inches away from the cancel itself ! Also shown were examples of the “Finska Kupé Postexpedition Nr. 4” and inbound letters from Birmingham, England and Bremen, Germany which had travelled overland through Europe to St. Petersburg, and on via the Finland Station through Helsinki to their eventual destination in Åbo / Turku. The final section showed the wide variety of Registration labels used along the line between 1908 and 1914 – these even specified whether it was a ‘Dag’ or ‘Natt’ train, which when combined with the three languages in use and the name changes of St. Petersburg / Petrograd / Pietari lead into a very interesting study.

Items from several Scandinavian countries: a) Norway: two Christmas postcards sent from the Hardanger – Søndhordlands Posteksp. ‘B’ to a seaman at the Norwegian Seaman’s Church in Brooklyn, U.S.A. – one in 1913 and one in 1914 – luckily the Church datestamped them on arrival – the first one took 16 days, the second 15 days; a ‘Bancobrev’ with two large red seals sent on the Hammerfest – Skjervøy Posteksp. In 1915; 4 items of mail to and from the WW1 internees from H.M.S. “INDIA” at Jørstadmoen which all had postmarks of Hamar as that is where they were censored; a letter from a Russian POW in Germany in 1917 sent via the ‘Moskauer Hilfskomité für Kriegsgefangene’ in Kopenhagen K, and a similar item from an Austrian internee in Norway sent via the ‘Norges Røde Kor’s Hjælpekomité For Krigsfanger I Utlandet’ in Kristiania; a WW1 letter from a Cpl. Halfdan Rovde of the American Expeditionary Force to a relative in Aalesund; b) Finnish – Swedish border: a postcard from an Austro-Hungarian POW being repatriated through Haparanda in 1917; c) a letter from Thor Heyerdahl about the ‘Kon-Tiki’ Expedition, and also a cover signed by him at “NORWEX 97” ; d) Norway WW2: a cover to celebrate the Heavy Water Raids of 1943-44 signed by the leader Knut Haukelid; e) Iceland: a cover to raise funds after the Heimaey volcanic eruption of 1973, and the FDC of the ‘Nissen Huts’ miniature sheet of 2003; f) Antarctica: a cover carried on a Norwegian ice-breaker and postmarked “Hobart, Tasmania – Paquebot”; g) Norway: the ‘Hurtigruten’: covers and booklets connected with the Centenary in 1993, and also the visit to London in 1994 of the new ship on the route – the “Nordlys".

We were also very pleased to see Elizabeth Robb, as she has also had some spells in hospital recently, but she had travelled up from Bridgwater, even though she did not have a display with her.

Roger Partridge