A set of six stamps to be issued on April 17 will celebrate wildlife which has been successfully reintroduced into Britain following its extinction in the wild.
In the past two centuries it is estimated that more than 400 species of animals and plants have disappeared from the UK, usually due to the loss, degradation or fragmentation of their natural habitats.
Thanks to the efforts of conservationists, scientists and volunteers, however, a number of programmes have successfully reintroduced some to their former environments, where they are flourishing once more.
Royal Mail will celebrate the centenary of the Royal Air Force with a set of six counter-sheet stamps and a four-stamp miniature sheet on March 20.
Established on April 1, 1918, through the merger of the Royal Flying Corps (the air arm of the British Army) and the Royal Naval Air Service (the air arm of the Royal Navy), the RAF is the world’s oldest independent air force, in the sense that it is not controlled by another branch of the military.
It played major roles in winning World War I and World War II (not least in protecting Britain from invasion by Germany in 1940), in projecting British power during the Cold War, and in waging more recent conflicts such as the Falklands War, the Gulf War, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
With the Votes for Women issue on February 15, Royal Mail will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Representation of the People Act 1918, which granted women the right to vote in parliamentary elections for the first time.
The campaign for women's suffrage had taken almost a century, with the first petitions presented in parliament in 1832 and 1966.
It gathered momentum towards the end of the 19th century with the establishment of two prominent pressure groups.
Royal Mail will issue a set of 15 stamps on January 23 featuring the popular television fantasy series Game Of Thrones.
It said the 10 gummed sheet stamps and five-stamp self-adhesive miniature sheet were produced ‘to celebrate the significant British contribution to the production of the award-winning drama series’.
Commissioned by the American television network HBO, co-created by the American producers David Benioff and Daniel Weiss, and based on novels by the American author George R R Martin, Game Of Thrones has been filmed to a large extent at Titanic Studios inBelfast, and partly on location elsewhere in Northern Ireland, in Scotland and in other European countries.
The 70th anniversary of the marriage of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip on November 20 is marked by the issue of a six-stamp miniature sheet entitled Royal Wedding: Platinum Anniversary.
It comprises black-and-white photographs of the couple taken during 1947: two on the day of their engagement, two on their wedding day and two while on honeymoon.
These are presented in se-tenant pairs of different values, while the sheet border features a detail of the wedding gown designed by Norman Hartnell.
Royal Mail’s Christmas issue, released on November 7, has two distinct elements, as it did in 2013.
A set of eight has various depictions of the Madonna & Child after old paintings, available from self-adhesive counter sheets (and booklets) and a gummed miniature sheet as usual.
A further set of four, available in self-adhesive guise only, features the two winning designs from a children’s competition, which attracted more than 200,000 entries.
Royal Mail has surprised the philatelic world by announcing that it will issue a second commemorative set devoted to the Star Wars film series.
Following the set of 12 stamps and a six-stamp miniature sheet heralding the release of The Force Awakens in 2015, a new issue on sale from October 12 will comprise eight stamps heralding The Last Jedi, which will be released in December.
It illustrates four droid and four alien characters, most of them well-known but one of them introduced in the latest film.
Occupation Octagonals
Produced for use by an occupying army which was already in full retreat, Thessaly’s one and only issue comprised the world’s first octagonal stamps
Report by Adrian Keppel
Thessaly 1898 20pa rose, one of five values in an issue which was distinctive but short-lived
Thessaly may be close to the centre of modern Greece, but it has a chequered history, not all of it Hellenic.
Originally known as Aeolia, and mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey, it has been part of the Persian, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires.
Even after the Greeks regained their independence in 1830, they had to wait more than 50 years before they could incorporate Thessaly into the country, in 1881.
Educational Reading For Generations Of Kids
On September 14 Royal Mail will issue a set of eight stamps celebrating Ladybird books, which have had a huge influence on generations of British children.
The Loughborough-based stationery firm Wills & Hepworth registered the Ladybird name in 1915, and published the first of its small-format children’s books bearing the Ladybird logo in 1940.
With wartime paper rationing in force, it concocted a format in which a 56-page book could be printed from a single sheet of paper.
Champlain celebration
Canada 1908 Quebec Tercentenary ½c sepia, portraying the Prince and Princess of Wales
1908 was a champagne moment in Canada’s history, and the Tercentenary of Quebec was celebrated by a fine recess-printed set of portrait and pictorial stamps.
The first successful European colony in mainland Canada had been established in 1608, when the French navigator Samuel de Champlain retraced the voyages of discovery made more than 70 years earlier by his fellow countryman Jacques Cartier.
A small settlement at the confluence of the St Lawrence and St Charles rivers, initially simply named l’Habitation, would eventually grow into Quebec City.
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