Penny Queen Part I

Victorian Britain 1840 …

 

‘The Queen is waiting Mr. Wood, as if the Queen would wait for the likes of you and I.’ 

 

 ’Yes Mr. Hill, I have some sheets and samples ready for your inspection.  This one I have prepared with a more flavorsome gum. I little extra sugar here and beeswax there, should be just a treat for the Queen’s lips, Mr. Hill.‘ 

 

‘It is almost treasonous Mr. Wood to be talking of the Queen’s lips. Let me taste your latest effort.  Erk!  I think not Mr. Wood.  Give me that other sheet, I will cut the samples myself. I have to get these to the Secretary pronto and then everything hinges on the Queen.  Remove that latest concoction and destroy the sheet and samples you have tainted them with.  That book of yours must have a dozen different ways to make paste for our sample. Just stick to your previous recipe Mr. Wood, that one works and clean this workspace, I want to see a regular bench when I return.’

 

‘The facepiece is your domain and your design for the Queen Mr. Hill but on the back I am king of the gum, so says I, Winston Wood.’

 

 

 

 

Williamsan Britain 2040 …

 

 

The Fry family are gathered as all families do.

 

‘Alice is writing letters to girlfriends or is it boyfriends,’ declared Jack.

 

‘What do 14 year olds know about writing letters?’ his sister asked.  ‘All you do is use your phone for everything else. Don’t you know, there is nothing private when you use a phone. When I write it down and post it, only the person who opens it can know.’

 

Jack thinks there may be merit in this approach.

 

‘Like details about boyfriends. How do you send a letter anyway?’ Jack goes on.  

 

Alice, in superior voice replied, ‘I assume you still know what a pen and paper is.  Once you have finished writing, you put the folded sheet in an envelope.  The next part requires your phone, so for you, the hardest thing will be using the pen.  You need the Postal App for this to work and an account with the Post Office. On the App form you enter the delivery info.’

 

‘Like what sort of delivery info?’ 

 

With a note of impatience Alice instructs him on the need for a recipient name, phone number, address and Postcode. 

 

‘What’s a postcode?’  asked Jack.  

 

‘OOO, it’s so the letter can more easily find where my friend lives, OK. Next you place the phone against the envelope and press activate. This does a few things, like seal the envelope, transfer the address to it, pay for the delivery and finally sends the unlock code to my friend’s phone.  The last thing is to put it in the letter box out on the street and the day after that it will arrive at my friend’s house. Any questions?’ prompted Alice with the flourish of an arm.

 

‘So, it’s just a blank envelope that goes into the letter bin,’ said Jack.

 

‘Letter box dummy!’ returned Alice.

 

‘How does the address get onto the envelope if its blank?’ asked Jack with a more interested tone. 

 

This time Asher was stumped and could only reply that it does.

 

‘It’s the nanites!  They are very small machines and are woven into the fabric of the envelope,’ lectured Mr. Fry.  They are instructed by the phone app to embed the delivery info into the envelope itself, rather than on it and also to bind together to seal it shut.  At the destination, the receiving phone App will erase the nanite patterns thereby opening the envelope and making it ready to use again. Saves the environment you know,’ added Mr. Fry.

 

Mrs. Fry is also attentive to this explanation.  ‘You know your great ancestor uncle played a role in setting up this whole postal business that you have been talking about.  He was an assistant to Sir Rowland Hill, who reorganised postal services by introducing stamps to prove payment.’

 

‘What’s a stamp?’ asked Alice.  

 

‘It’s a small paper square with glue on the back that you moisten so as to stick it onto the envelope,’ making rude tongue gestures at her daughter.  ‘This meant the letter could be delivered, as payment had been made, just like when your App takes the payment from your account. In those days it was only a penny but your App would have taken £3.’

 

‘People have been collecting those stamps for 200 years and since none have been printed since 2020, the values of really old stamps in particular, have been going up,‘ chipped in Mr. Fry.

 

‘So, what did the grand Uncle do exactly?’ asked Jack. 

 

Mrs. Fry was warming to the topic.

 

‘He worked in Sir Rowland Hill’s office, but according to his diary it was always on the messy stuff. Experiments with clag and resins that would make a stamp stick. I like to think of him as the glue that held the office together. My mother took the diary to a stamp dealer when she was young. It seems the book has an historical interest and was worth keeping in a safe place.  It has been on a shelf here unopened for 50 years.’

 

‘They made that guy a knight for inventing stamps. Can I see one of these stamps?’ asked Jack.  

 

‘Just hold right there.’  Mr. Fry leaves the room on a mission and his wife disappears as well.  Soon he is back with stamps, amongst them one of the last ever printed, showing a Dodo with a face value of £1.  ‘I guess they thought interest in stamps was going to fade like a Dodo,’ sighed Mr. Fry.

 

‘Before you ask me why they have those holes between them, they are called perforations and they make it easier to separate each individual stamp.  Back in your grand uncle’s day you needed scissors to separate them out. The lesson now continues,’ as he glances up to see his wife returning.

 

She has the original workbook which describes the methods her ancestor uncle used to make various adhesives. ‘See he has even left a bookmark on the page for the best recipe,’ beamed Mrs. Fry.

 

Jack took hold of the book, noting its scruffy worn cover, scrawled pages and smudged ink.  There are also some pages stuck together.  ‘It’s not exactly the glamour side of the partnership is it.’

He started shaking it violently to see if the pages would unstick. Before his mother can tell him off, something falls out of the cover. 

 

‘There’s an extra folded sheet here, look.’  Opening it straight away a prime Penny Black is revealed and a short note from Winston Wood –

 

Mr Hill has instructed me to burn the rest of my test sheet for the Queen. I have done so except for 5 samples that I have hidden away in my notebook.  These are some of the first ever examples of our work.

 

 

Mouths were agape when Jack finished reading.  Mrs. Fry was in shock and took the book back for a careful closer look at the slit revealed in the cover.  ‘All this time and no-one knew. I don’t see anything else in there. Where are the other four stamps then?’ as she looked to her husband.  

 

‘See if the back cover has a slit in it,’ he suggested. 

 

No sign of any other stamps could be found.  Never the less they were looking at an instant fortune considering the whole package consisting of the book, now with the letter and stamp.

 

It was decided the next morning that a professional opinion should again be sought, 50 years after the first one, considering the changed circumstance.  They also concluded that the other four stamps must have previously dropped from the cover and are now lost. However they are more than happy with the situation.  This is exactly how it was explained to the dealer at Manly Ribbons Pty Ltd.  

 

Jack was falling on the floor laughing. 

 

‘Where should I wear my ribbon then?’ he asked.  

 

Alice warned him not to distract the dealer by being an idiot. After much examination of the package, Jack paid more attention when the sum of a million dollars was mentioned as a probable valuation.  Mr. Ribbons entered the details in his database and made rigorous scanned images of the stamp. He suggested the best way forward might be to display the package at the upcoming WORPHILEX 2040 conference. This was a Philatelic extravaganza to celebrate the 200 year anniversary of Sir Rowland Hill and the first release of the Penny Black.