Britain's most spectacular commemoratives, No48: 1992 Protection of the Environment 39p

Like No50 in our countdown, this stamp was issued as a result of a competition run by television’s Blue Peter programme. But in this case the design brief was much more complicated: children were asked for ideas with an environmental message.

Alice Newton-Mold, aged 12, painted the Bird of Hope, ingeniously showing shining modern homes and green trees apparently being regenerated from grey industrial wasteland as the bird flies over them. 

The intensity of the colour used for Queen’s head and border underline the stamp’s green credentials.

Design: Trickett & Webb.

Printing: photogravure by Harrisons.

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