Stamp of disapproval asWales is slighted

FURTHER to my recent published letter about the difficulty of obtaining Welsh definitive postage stamps, Royal Mail has just replied to my direct inquiries to them on this.

I am told that for “cost and efficiency reasons”, the definitive stamps of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (and special commemoratives) are still gummed stamps rather than self-adhesive – as are the UK standard first- and second-class stamps. The quoted phrase is not in itself convincing, of course – merely an unsupported assertion.

The spokesman also said that all Welsh post offices, big and small, are at liberty to order the Welsh firstand second-class stamps as they wish.

I have replied to Royal Mail that I am still dissatisfied, not least because someone somewhere in England might eventually assert, “Oh, there is so little demand for the Welsh definitive stamps, we’ll discontinue them”. The reality is that the Welsh stamps are perhaps less popular by virtue of being still gummed rather than the selfadhesive – as are the UK ones. And the Welsh versions are so damned difficult to buy, most people are probably unaware they exist.

And secondly, even when, for example, Bridgend (Crown) Post Office orders the Welsh stamps, they take ages to arrive.

I know that this matter is, on the scale of things, rather minor compared to the recent slap in the face whereby Westminster has gone back on its pledge to electrify the rail line from Cardiff to Swansea, but it is another example of the way we are treated as a nation. John D Rogers Nantymoel