A little VC-10-derness

 

So went the advertising slogan. I actually don't know if aircraft have slogans anymore? But the VC10 was a beautiful, very noisy, UK built icon of its age. I remember as a teenager, trying to get to sleep at home in Warlingham at 10:30pm when the BA VC-10 from Heathrow to Hong Kong flew over. You could still hear it half an hour later. The second photo shows me standing on the wing of the VC10 at Dunsfold. This aircraft has appeared in many TV shows and movies. I was also standing way too close to it and not wearing ear defenders when it did a full power taxi run on this day. That really hurt. 

Gypsy Moth VI

Me, nine years old, obsessed with Francis Chichester's circumnavigation of the globe aboard Gypsy Moth 4. Imagine the joy of finding this stamp, all those years later, postmarked on my birthday!

Bermuda Day

 

Bermuda Day is 28 May and traditionally the first day where the weather is nice enough to go onto the water. It's also said to be the first day when traditional Bermuda shorts can be worn as business attire. This stamp is quite special because I posted it! In November 1987 on a postcard to my mum and dad. 

Crystal Palace

 

In 1936 the Crystal Palace burned down watched by a young Bill Gunner from his bedroom window in Croydon. In the early 1960 I fondly remember feeding apple to a Toucan in the zoo in the park. Sue, less fondly, remembers getting bit by an orangutan around the same time. Neither of us had been back until this week when we went there to visit a Malaysian streetfood stall. The park hadn't changed. The concrete dinosaurs are still there. As is the bowl concert stage, where Clapton and Bob Marley among others had played,. And a lovely stroll around the foundations of the Crystal Palace itself. 

 

All that glitters

 

Here's one of the glorious Yemen golden stamps.

Yemen

The Yemen, first came to my attention in the early 80's when catering the Yemenia 727. This was the first time I came across guns, carried by their skymarshalls. This stamp was used in May 1972, a defining moment in the history of this troubled country and the outbreak of civil war. 

I decided to buy a Yemen stamp after Sue and I had a coffee in a Yemini cafe in Rottingdean. I ended up in a bidding war for a pack of stamps. Quite a few of them feature an aircraft that is crying out for an investigation. They also do very nice gold stamps. More on both these things later. 

 

Toulon, 1944

I wouldn't normally buy a stamp with a swastica on, but these are of interest to me. Toulon on the French Mediterranean coast was the headquarters of the French navy during the war. In 1944 Toulon, like most of France, was occupied by the Nazis. Among the French resistance in Toulon, my hero Jacques-Yves Cousteau. His brother Pierre-Antoine on the other hand was a Nazi sympathiser, who was imprisoned and narrowly escaped being executed for his allegiance. The fact these little bits of paper were in that city at that defining time gives me the shivers .