Continuing the “animals of Christmas” theme from yesterday, here are some rather fabulous sheep and their well-dressed shepherds. The artist is Colleen Corlett, who worked for the Isle of Man postal service for 15 years and has also designed stained glass windows, ceramics, tapestries and more. It’s rather weird to be able to credit a stamp designer and then to find more references to their ongoing work – see the link below.
Following on from that, the other credit is to Waddington which likely refers to the firm of John Waddington, founded in Leeds, England in the 18-somethings which went on to print stamps, playing cards and board games. They’re probably one of the biggest board game printers in the UK and a name that resonates with anyone who grew up here playing things like Cluedo, Sorry and Top Trumps… There is a rather fab story on the Wikipedia page below about a special edition of Monopoly given to British prisoners-of-war during World War II which featured little clues and advice on how to escape a prison camp…
Oh, last but not least: the Isle of Man is a self-governing British Crown dependency (technical term for British but not Britain, I think) located in the Irish Sea between Wales and Ireland. It is home to around 83,000 people, is most famous for the TT motorcycle race around the island, and has a long and rich history of human occupation which is worth a read.
http://www.creativenetwork.im/colleen-corlett.html
Stamp of the Day 