A Page from the Past

Thanks to both Boud and Mary G yesterday for educating me that the GRI VI inscription on the medal stands for George VI Rex Imperator (King and Emperor). I updated that post but am acknowledging their contributions here.

Also, someone asked about the black item at the bottom of Sue's photo link. It is her grandfather's compass from WWI, and it still works. The batteries are still good, eh?  😁

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I'm not sure why I have kept my stamp album from my boyhood days, for there is nothing of value in it, but I have held onto it regardless. I have taken it with me from Montreal to Toronto (Cooksville), Sarnia and now here to Ottawa (Carleton Place). There may or may not have been intervening stops in Guelph and London, but it probably remained with my parents in those university days.

I collected stamps when I was a boy of about 10 and 11 years, maybe 12 a little bit. That would be from around 1957-59.

This is part of a page from the Canada section. To my mind the tilted stamp of King George VI and HM Queen Elizabeth is the focal point. The royal princesses are featured in the green stamp to its left of that. Above the royal couple and to the right it lies yet another stamp of the couple. That one is the 1957 issue while my focus one is 1959. Above that is his father King George V and his Queen, Mary. There are a number of stamps in the lower section, mostly featuring his majesty. 

I enjoyed philately, but it overwhelmed me a young boy. The world is a big place, and a boy without much in the way of funds didn't know how to keep up. If a mentor would have told me that I didn't have to collect stamps of the world but could just concentrate on a few countries, perhaps I would have kept at it. Alas, I had no mentor, certainly not my parents. 

As evidence of my lack of mentoring, I remember getting approval stamps from a company. I purchased a set, but all that I knew was to plop coins in an envelope and send them to America. Naturally, the company didn't receive payment. After they asked for payment, I wrote back in my still childlike script telling them that I had sent the funds. They apparently, just chalked it up to a loss, for I never heard from them again.

The stamp book was also getting out of date, and I would just stick stamps onto a blank page and tuck it into the book It just seemed wrong to me, however, not to have a proper page with an image of the stamp. While one could possibly have purchased yearly updates for the album (I am not sure of this), that wasn't going to happen in my circumstances.

So, I put the hobby aside. I guess, however, that the collection, or even that time of my life, meant something to me, for I have since carted the album around for close to 65 years.