One of my first memories is of helping my mother with Christmas cards. My father’s role in this endeavour extended to grumpily signing his name after an inordinate amount of nagging and sherry, and the three-year-old me clearly felt that her involvement would lighten my mother’s festive burden. Much to my irritation, rather than being allowed to scrawl a heartfelt seasonal greeting, I was relegated to affixing the stamps; I vividly recall the bitter, viscous taste of the gum, and my enthusiasm for the task soon waned.
Given my early aversion, the advent of self-adhesive stamps nearly 30 years ago was welcome, but even I then sensed there was something lacking, that some of the romance was being lost with such a step. And while it’s been some time coming, the Royal Mail’s announcement that our current stamps are to be phased out by January next year in favour of the barcoded variety, made me feel rather sad. The new stamps look
