Penny Black Stories

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The Colonel is a formidable man and is treated with almost ecclesiastical reverence by our members. He is now in his twelfth year as President. There have been a few mutterings from members about 'new blood needed' and 'time to step down', but the Colonel has hung on to his Presidency as tenaciously as a bulldog, and nobody has dared to oppose him.

So it came as quite a shock to everybody when he announced at last night's meeting that he would not be standing for re-election at the next Annual General Meeting. It came as a shock to everyone except me. You see I had inside information, courtesy of his cleaning lady.

The Colonel collects Cape of Good Hope. It must be said that he has a fine collection with many rarities, and shows them each year on 'President's Evening', with several allusions about the scarcity and value of the most impressive items displayed. His jewel in the crown is a copy of the four pence triangular wood-block with the error of colour - printed in vermilion instead of blue. It's a superb copy with good margins and is always greatly admired by members. The Colonel simply describes it as 'irreplaceable' when he gives a display. And then after a suitable pause tells his audience the current catalogue value.

My nephew, knowing of my interest in stamps, sometimes relates stories of a philatelic nature to me. "Tania's mum cleans for a stamp collector," he told me once. It took me a while to figure out from the clues that this was none other than the overbearing Colonel Winslow-Ellis.

Of course when I realised that fact I pumped him for more information. "Tania's mum may be losing her cleaning job," he reported one day. "She says that there's ructions at that household. Always arguing and shouting at each other they are. She says his wife wants a new fur coat, but he says they can't afford one. 'Only because you've spent our money on buying your silly stamps' she tells him. And then there's a big argument. Tania's mum says they are headed for the divorce court. They'll have to sell the house and she'll be out of a job."

I got the next episode of this saga when I visited my sister a couple of months ago. "Tommy's away on a school trip today," she said. "They're visiting an archaeological dig as part of their history course. An old Roman villa I think he said. Good job they've got fine weather for it. Those sites can be a bit muddy. I'm fed up with washing his dirty clothes after every football match."

We sat down with cups of tea for a chat. The conversation moved around to Tommy's school work. "He's got a girl-friend you know," said Fay. "Tania's her name. Only twelve years old and already dating. They grow up fast these days don't they Penny?"

I nodded agreement. "Is she a sensible girl?" I asked.

"As sensible as any twelve year old I suppose. Her mother's divorced. She does cleaning jobs to eke out the benefit money. You may know one of the people that employs her. A Colonel somebody or other - he's a stamp collector - a bit of a stuffed-shirt so Tommy tells me. They had a burglary a few days ago and a valuable stamp's gone missing. Though I'm a bit confused about that. Tommy said it was a block of wood that was stolen not a stamp."

I laughed. "No, it is a stamp," I said. "It's known as a wood-block because it looks so crude collectors thought at first it had been printed from a carved wood block and not a metal plate."

"Well, anyway," continued Fay, "This Colonel what's-his-name was really put out about the burglary. Seems the police are baffled because the whole house is alarmed. They're just waiting for somebody to try and sell it to catch the thief."

I noticed in a stamp auction catalogue I received last week that they were selling the very stamp that had been stolen from the Colonel. Well, at least I thought it was. The word had got around the society that the Colonel had been the victim of a burglary. So I showed the catalogue to another society member at our meeting last night. He also collects Cape of Good Hope and is quite an expert, but doesn't aspire to the Colonel's heights of rare material.

"Is it the Colonel's stamp?" I asked him.

The member studied the photograph in the catalogue carefully. "It's very similar Penny," he said, "but it's not the same copy. It's cut much closer to the design than the Colonel's copy."

I wasn't so sure. It's easy enough to cut down an imperforate stamp to make it look different, so I rang the auction firm this morning and suggested it may have been stolen from a well known collection. "We're not allowed to give information about vendors," they said. "But I do assure you we check the antecedents of all the material that we sell. This item comes from an impeccable source."

Later this morning I was on my way to the post office when I saw Mrs Winslow-Ellis in the distance. I recognised her because she sometimes attends our Christmas social evening with her husband. She was wearing a brand new fur coat. It looked quite expensive. I couldn't help wondering if it was a chip off the old wood-block!