SPECIAL stamps issued to celebrate achievements and iconic locations in the region have been collected together to mark 50 years since their creation.
This year marks the half-century of Royal Mail’s Special Stamp programme and the people, places and iconic images of the area have appeared on numerous special stamps.
Among the East Lancashire individuals used on stamps are cyclists Steven Burke, ‘The Colne Cyclone’, and his fellow 2012 Olympic gold medallist Sir Bradley Wiggins, who lives in Chorley and often trains on the roads of Ribble Valley and Pendle.
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Sir Bradley has become a national treasure thanks to his efforts in the saddle.
He began his career on the track, but has made the transition to road cycling and is one of the few cyclists to gain significant elite-level success in both forms of professional cycling. Wiggins was born in Ghent, Belgium, before moving to London, where he began track cycling.
And he also won the Tour de France in addition to his Olympic gold.
Other stamps in the ‘top ten’ for the region include Blackpool Piers, Manchester’s Commonwealth Games, The Grand National, The Beatles and cotton inventor Richard Arkwright.
As part of the programme to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the special stamp programme, Royal Mail has launched an online gallery of every special stamp issued since July 1965, which includes images of the memorable stamps of the North West.
A Royal Mail spokesman said: “Visitors to the site at www.rmspecialstamps.com can browse through the stamps by the decade and also view the stamps that were issued in the year that they were born.”
Criteria for the creation of special stamps to celebrate events and commemorate anniversaries were devised in 1965 by the then Postmaster General, Tony Benn.
The stamp of Sir Winston Churchill, issued in July of that year, was the first under Benn’s administration.
It was the first British stamp to feature a contemporary individual, and with its modernist approach with no words it set the scene for the future.
Including these, 2,663 special stamps have been issued, with the Queen approving all UK stamp designs before they are printed.
A video presented by broadcaster and historian Dan Snow, which explores how the special stamp programme has been shaped by the changing face of the UK, is also hosted on the www.rmspecialstamps.com website.
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