2025 News
Text Box: Henley and District Philatelic Society Daphne McMillan—”Airgraphs” 8th January 2025 To safeguard against adverse weather conditions, the Society’s calendar year began with a Zoom meeting, allowing members to enjoy a philatelic evening in the warmth and comfort of their homes and enabling an invitation to a speaker well furth of the Thames Valley. We also welcomed members of Oxford Philatelic Society to our meeting. Our regular notetaker had succumbed to a fall, incurring damage to both knees, and presented apologies from his hospital bed. This account of the meeting is presented by your Chairman, which explains the lack of customary detail. Subsequent discussion placed this topic in the realms of postal history, for unlike postal stationery, the consignments bore no printed indicium (with one exception displayed), yet still involved the transmission of a message. In principle, an airgraph is a message written on a preformatted form, photographed onto microfilm which was conveyed to a remote printing facility, where the message was reproduced onto photographic paper and disseminated locally by the Royal Engineers’ Army Postal Services. The technology had been around since the early part of the 20th century, but came into its own during the second world war. With Europe under siege, it became logistically difficult to carry the volume of conventional mail from the Middle East and beyond back to the UK. With a reel of microfilm carrying as many messages as two sackloads of letters, this burden was reduced considerably. Airgraph forms were free, but their use was paid for by attaching a 3d stamp. As with regular mail, airgraphs were censored prior to being photographed. Beside basic airgraph forms, there was plenty of scope for regimental and other pre-printed forms and Daphne’s display included many examples of senders putting their own artistic skills to use. Daphne fielded questions both during and after her display and pleasantries were exchanged between friends and strangers. Steve informed us that scanning of the auction lots was well under way. Thanking Daphne, the Chairman wrapped up the evening, reminding members that we could look forward to a display on “Viaducts” in two weeks’ time, also on Zoom. He surprised everyone by announcing that the theme of his Chairman’s evening in February would involve some obscure South American country.  CLICK HERE FOR 2024 NEWS