Royal stamp of approval

QUESTION Did the Dad’s Army postage stamp make actor Ian Lavender the first living non-Royal to appear on a UK stamp? If not, who was?

For a long time, the royal Mail maintained a policy of showing only the reigning monarch and members of the royal Family on postage stamps.

William Shakespeare was the first commoner to be featured on a British stamp, in 1964 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of his birth. From then, longdead historical figures were featured, but not living people.

There were exceptions. In 1967, Sir Francis Chichester completed the first solo round-the-world voyage and a stamp was issued of his boat, Gipsy Moth IV. He was depicted on the boat, albeit in a tiny and unidentifiable form.

Another break in the rule was the 1999 Freddie Mercury stamp. The singer had died in 1991, but the indistinct drummer in the background can be assumed to be Queen’s roger Taylor.

In 2003, when England beat Australia to win the rugby World Cup, four commemorative stamps were issued showing the backs of players, not their faces.

It wasn’t until october 2005 after England’s victory over Australia in the 2005 Ashes cricket series that the policy changed. The stamps depict captain Michael Vaughan raising the Ashes, Kevin Pietersen batting and ‘Freddie’ Flintoff celebrating a wicket.

Owen Matthews, Cardiff.

QUESTION How did The Black Watch regiment get its name?

In 1725, George I, having had to deal with the first Jacobite rebellion in the first The Queen and Queen: The 1999 stamp featuring Freddie Mercury year of his reign, decided to raise six Companies of Highlanders to police the Highlands. They were not attached to the Army and he stipulated they should be raised from Protestant clans, mostly Campbells, Grants, Munroes and Frasers.

It was such a success that George II made them into a regiment of the Army in 1739, with the number 43rd and named the Highland regiment of Foot.

Their uniform was a dark kilt and as they operated mostly at night, on watch, they were given the Gaelic nickname Am

friecedan dhu, meaning the ‘dark clothed ones’, as opposed to the redcoats. They were also dubbed the Black Watch.

In 1749, the 42nd regiment was disbanded, so all the regiments above that had to be renumbered. Thus the Black Watch officially became the 42nd (Highland) regiment of Foot.

In 1795, the regiment was awarded a red hackle, or plume of vulture feathers, to wear on their bonnets.

By 1861, the name Black Watch had become popular and their title was changed to 42nd royal Highlanders (Black Watch). In the great 1881 reforms, the 42nd amalgamated with the 73rd Perthshire, which had earlier been the 2nd Battalion of the 42nd, and they became 1st and 2nd Battalions Black Watch (royal Highlanders).

The nickname was more popular with the public than the real name.

Until almost the end of World War I, the hierarchy insisted on calling the regiment the royal Highlanders and most of the graves of its fallen show that name.

My uncle, Archibald Proudfoot, was killed in August 1918, but by then the heads of the Army were getting into line with the ordinary soldiers, so his gravestone has the regiment as Black Watch.

Thomas Proudfoot, Alresford, Hants.

QUESTION When World War II pilot Mary Ellis had flown a plane to an airfield, how did she get back home?

FURTHER to the earlier answer about former Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) pilot Mary Ellis, who died in July, at the age of 101, there is a museum dedicated to all ATA women pilots.

The permanent ATA exhibition — Grandma Flew Spitfires — is at the Maidenhead Heritage Centre, Berkshire.

By the end of World War II, ATA women pilots had delivered more than 1,000 aircraft of 80 types from factories to RAF stations across the country.

Mary Ellis recalled how, at one RAF base, the ground crew refused to believe she was the pilot of the Wellington bomber that had just landed.

‘They actually went inside the aeroplane and searched it,’ she said. ‘Everybody was flabbergasted that a little girl like me could fly these big aeroplanes all by myself.’

IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London, W8 5TT. You can also fax them to 01952 780111 or you can email them to charles. legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.