Tony Benn & Christmas postage stamps. A world of which Simon Thompson has no conception
I’ll write a handful of Christmas cards this year which I’ll mostly hand deliver in person.
Before the rise of social media I, and I’m sure others, received quite large numbers of cards.
Christmas has been and no doubt to some extent still is, the busiest time for the Royal Mail dating back to the 1840s.
What is less well known is Tony Benn’s role in making sure that the then Post Office produced special Christmas stamps.
Benn was Postmaster General for a period in the 1964-70 Labour Governments and had to overcome considerable resistance to get the stamps introduced.
He records in his diary for 1st February 1966,
I talked to Downes about the Post Office Christmas card. He had put in an absolute negative in the best Postal Services Department fashion. He came in grim faced and I talked him out of it. We will have a card with a Christmas stamp and simple greetings selling at 6d.
The focus however was on the stamps. On Friday May 13th 1966 Benn wrote
I have decided to go ahead with the children’s competition for the Christmas stamp, even though the local authorities are opposed to it. It will give us an idea of the sort of quality you might expect from children.
Benn, through the Post Office, organised a competition among schoolchildren aged under 15. The competition was launched on Blue Peter, which at the time received viewing figures of around 8 million twice a week. Response to the competition was huge. Over 5,000 designs were submitted which were assessed by a team of eight professional stamp designers. These first British Christmas stamps featured a design by Tasveer Shemza (of King Wenceslas) and James Berry (Snowman).
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