Draft Publications

I have for a long time been working on the document “Queen Elizabeth II FPOs Working Version 2” and have made a substantial number of changes. I had hoped to publish an updated version before now, but the changes have had to be made over a period of time due to my other responsibilities and activities. I have now attached an updated version as “Queen Elizabeth II FPOs Working Version 3”. Work is still not complete as I’ll explain below, but I have made a number of changes as indicated as follows:

• I have tried to ensure consistency in describing locations, including spelling and in the case of Germany including the use of umlauts (ü ë ö) where appropriate.

•  I have expanded on the Home Postal Depot / London BAPO / BFPO London section, with regards to rubber packet and parcel cancellations although I need to list the rubber types inscribed Home Postal Depot.

•  I have included and detailed “PART THIRTEEN – ZONE POSTAL DEPOT CANCELLATIONS”

•  I have also included “PART FOURTEEN - FORCES COURIER SERVICE HANDSTAMPS” although I need to list those under Type CS1 and also expand to include the HQ Courier Services datestamps.

• I have been extending the scope of the listing outside the QE II period (i.e. by making it post-WW2) and, of course, should we get any reports of use we are now in the King Charles III era!

• We have a great deal of information on datestamps in the Post Office datestamp Impression Books which indicates when they are likely to have been introduced, as well as some details on datestamps destroyed (this information is held in relevant books in The Postal Museum Archives) and I have therefore included this where appropriate.

•  I also have information collected by the late John Daynes on various datestamp returns held by the Directorate / BFPO London. He has either listed these or else has scanned copies of the returns. I have made a start on including these in the listing - they provide indications of locations where we have not had reports of sightings for some time. Whilst I have included a number of these there are still more to do. They represent a period in the early 2000’s (2001 and 2003).

• Work to do: To complete what I have started as described above; I also need to re-vamp “PART ELEVEN - BRITISH FLEET MAIL” and bring it into line with other sections.

If you have any new items or dates which extends periods of use or queries, then please post them on this Forum.