Stamp Schedule for 2025!

Canvey Island Local Post (CILP) is pleased to confirm its stamp schedule for 2025. This year has significant WWII anniversaries so our offering this year does lean towards that era and a monochrome photographic theme – but not entirely! As usual, illustrations will be published nearer their scheduled release dates to maintain surprise and excitement!

Music Series: Dr Feelgood (6 January 2025)

Already issued. This stamp applauds Dr. Feelgood, an English pub rock band formed in 1971 on Canvey Island. It is the first stamp in our new Music Series, featuring local and international musicians with links to Canvey Island and the surrounding area.

(CP069) Dr Feelgood

Aviators Series: No.3 - ‘Eagle’ Sqn RAF (21 March 2025)

The third stamp in the series, and the first to salute a group of aviators rather than an individual, it commemorates the American volunteers that served and flew in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during WWII in the famous ‘Eagle’ Squadrons.

In particular CILP honours the men of No. 121 Sqn. RAF who flew from airfields in Essex including RAF Rochford (now London-Southend Airport), around twelve miles from Canvey Island. A bonus for aviation fans is that the Supermarine Spitfire MKV features in the design!

VE Day (8 May 2025)

Celebrating the 80^th Anniversary of the guns falling silent in Western Europe in 1945, this issue is a colourful commemoration of the day. It features flag bunting of the major Allied nations and anniversary legend. A sobering reminder of what unified and determined allies can achieve together.

Heritage Series: Laundry Delivery (21 July 2025)

This issue has been planned for some time but was set aside due to other date critical commemorations. This issue is more special than most to me, as it features my maternal grandmother and great-grandfather delivering clean laundry on their horse-drawn cart c.1930.

 

VJ Day (15 August)

The second significant 80^th Anniversary of the year is Victory over Japan Day. The stamp features celebrating RAF personnel on the Cocos Islands on 14 August 1945, the day before the official declaration, with a USA made B-24 bomber in the background.

CILP 15^th Anniversary (10 November 2025)

To wrap-up the year CILP marks the fifteenth anniversary of its first stamp issue on 10 November 2010, with a multicoloured celebration of stamps on a stamp. Where has the time gone?

As usual all available CILP stamps can be obtained online from Alpha Thematics on ebid.net/uk.

 

Postmaster 

New Issue: Dr Feelgood 1971

Dr. Feelgood are an English pub rock band formed in 1971. Hailing from Canvey Island, Essex, they are best known for their original and distinctively British R&B sound that was centred on "Wilko" Johnson's choppy guitar style.

Dr. Feelgood 1971 (CP069)

Along with Johnson, the initial band line-up included singer Lee Brilleaux and the rhythm section of John B. Sparks, known as "Sparko", on bass guitar, and John Martin, known as "The Big Figure", on drums. Their most commercially productive years were the mid to late-1970s, with singles such as "She Does It Right", "Back in the Night", and "Milk and Alcohol".

This stamp has a print run of 140, and features a large mural by Liam Heatherson, painted on Canvey Island sea wall. It is the first stamp in a series featuring local and international musicians with links to Canvey Island and the surrounding area.

Dr. Feelgood stamp FDI Postcard (reverse)

A limited number of First Day Issue postcards have also been released.

CILP stamps are available from our agent, Alpha Thematics on Ebid UK.

Postmaster

New Issue: Hester's Mono-Rail 1902

CILP is pleased to announce the release on 18 November, 2024, of our latest stamp issue in our Local History series.

Property developer Frederick Hester established the first Mono-Rail in Essex, England, on Canvey Island in 1902. It was intended to transport prospective bungalow buyers, holiday makers and day trippers down from London, from the mainland railway station to the River Thames Estuary coast via his Winter Gardens and other business interests.

Hester's Mono-Rail 1902 (CP068)

However, lack of funds prevented electrification and expansion, and the service was brief, perhaps running for around two years. Our stamp features a period photograph of the horse-drawn Mono-Rail complete with visitors and local photogenic dog! This issue has a print run of 160 stamps.

CILP stamps are available from our agent, Alpha Thematics on Ebid UK.

Postmaster

Flags, Statistics and AI Theft!

 Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) development by big corporations the death-knell for copyright law and intellectual rights? If international legislators do not grasp this nettle soon, I fear we may have already lost the battle to keep ownership of anything we create.

On our website we have a useful and interesting application called ‘Flagcounter’ that shows the location of our visitors from the top twenty countries, by displaying their national flags in the right lower margin of our home page. But over the last few years, a worrying trend has developed.

The UK and USA have naturally been the top nations from which our visitors originated, with around 6% of our total visitors coming from these two English-speaking countries. In contrast, in less than two years, Singapore has sped up the visitor list and now accounts for 90% of our visitors! I doubt Singapore has that many cinderella local post devotees.

 After a little delving it appears the Singapore statistics represent internet robots, spiders, or crawlers, designed to “borrow” images for AI resources. In other words, stealing without credit to the image owner or creator.

Image Source: Pixabay

It seems Google Analytics (GA) filters out these visitors from Singapore, as they do not appear in website GA results. Of course, AI crawlers are not only restricted to Singapore, they are being used by all the major (and minor) AI developers targeting the world wide web.

The worst thing is they cannot be stopped from visiting my website even when they are specifically blocked in the site .htaccess file. Other website owners have reported similar futile attempts to protect their sites from these AI thieves. If I had not been using the application ‘Flagcounter’ I would not have noticed this digital burglary at all!

In order to counter this free unattributed use of CILP stamp images by AI bots, CILP is proposing to deface future stamp images with diagonal red lines, as is the custom of stamp issuing authorities worldwide. 

Am I bolting the door after the horse has bolted? Maybe, but a little victory makes me feel better!

 

Postmaster