103 stamps of approval
QUESTION How many stamp designs did David Gentleman create for the Royal Mail?
DaviD Gentleman is Britain’s most prolific stamp designer. He has created 103 for Royal mail and submitted many more that weren’t selected for issue.
Born in 1930, he studied at the Royal academy of art. He has worked in watercolour, lithography and wood engraving and designed the platform-length murals of medieval workers for Charing Cross Underground Station. He has written and illustrated many books, mostly about countries and cities.
in the early 1960s, he started working with his most enduring client, Royal mail, when stamp design had to incorporate a large portrait of the Queen. the Royal mail Stamp advisory Committee, chaired by Sir Kenneth Clark, was conservative in its approach.
Gentleman’s first designs were a series of 2nd class stamps for the national Productivity Year, 1962, incorporating symbolic arrows.
in 1964, tony Benn became Postmaster General and was keen to reinvent the postage stamp. Gentleman wrote to Benn outlining his vision for a new approach, even going as far as to suggest doing away with the royal portrait.
Benn was persuaded, but Prime minister Harold Wilson felt this was too radical. However, Gentleman’s proposal to use a different portrait of the Queen was accepted.
the three- quarter Dorothy Wilding portrait was replaced by a small cameo based on the coinage head by mary Gillick. Squeezing the Queen into a square centimetre gave Gentleman more room for his stamp designs, including the Battle of Hastings, Concorde, the 1996 World Cup and the millennium series.
Keith Fry, Bath, Somerset.
QUESTION What caused the 19th century Victoria Hall disaster in which dozens of children were killed?
a StamPeDe for free toys at the end of a children’s entertainment show in 1883 resulted in the deaths of 183 youngsters aged between three and 14.
the tragedy caused outrage and
brought about changes in the law on emergency exit doors on public buildings.
in the 1880s, brother and sister alexander and annie Fay toured the country as the american Wonders performing ventriloquism, magic and pseudo- spiritualism.
On June 16, 1883, their Saturday afternoon show at victoria Hall in Wearside was billed as ‘the Greatest treat for Children ever Given’.
it promised conjuring, talking waxworks, living marionettes and the Great Ghost illusion. as an extra treat for their penny tickets, children were told they ‘stood a chance of receiving a handsome present, book or toy’.
at the end of the show, an announcement was made that children with certain ticket numbers would win prizes and staff began to give them out in the stalls.
more than a thousand children in the upper gallery rushed to the stairs leading downstairs. the inward-facing door had been bolted to allow only one child at a time to pass through. in the resulting mayhem, the children who had arrived first were crushed by the weight of the hundreds behind them.
Queen victoria sent messages of condolence to the grieving families and donated £50 to the disaster fund, which raised the equivalent of half a million pounds in today’s money. Public horror at the tragedy resulted in the introduction of outward opening emergency exit doors at events. no one was prosecuted for the tragedy and the person who had bolted the door was never identified. Within a month of the inquests, the Fays resumed their act and continued performing for 25 years. Ian MacDonald, Billericay, Essex.
QUESTION In legal terms, is Scientology considered to be a religion?
YeS and no. Scientology is recognised as
a religion in marriage law, but not in charity law.
Scientology is a controversial belief system created by sci-fi author l. Ron Hubbard. it teaches that a human is an immortal, spiritual being (thetan) in a physical body and has had innumerable past lives. Prominent adherents include tom Cruise and John travolta.
in 2011, louisa Hodkin filed an application for registration of the chapel at the Church of Scientology of london as a place of religious worship.
the registrar office denied the application, based on a 1970 Court of appeal decision denying an application to certify the chapel at the Church of Scientology at Saint Hill, West Sussex, as a place of religious worship.
the court decided Scientology couldn’t constitute a religion for legal purposes because it was insufficiently focused on ‘reverence to a deity’, so was more akin to a philosophy. nor were its ceremonies religious because Scientologists did not ‘humble themselves in reverence and recognition of the dominant power and control of any entity or being outside their own body or life’.
in 2013, the Supreme Court reversed the ruling and declared the Chapel at the london Church of Scientology be recognised as a place of worship. it stated: ‘Religion should not be confined to religions that recognise a supreme deity. it would exclude Buddhism, along with other faiths such as Jainism, taoism, theosophy and part of Hinduism.’
However, an application for charity status was rejected in 1999 on the grounds there is no ‘public benefit arising out of the practice of Scientology’.
Diane Wishart, East Grinstead, W. Sussex.
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