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“Jamie Smith Jamie was Born in Warwickshire on the 11th of January 1935 and lived in Stratford-upon-Avon for seventeen and a half years. He shares, “I went to school there but never did one hour of homework as there was a war on. But I did start collecting stamps, studying geography and human biology (on my own at the local library) and bird watching (the feathered type) all from the age of eight.” He left school at the age of fourteen and started work training to be a chef four days after his fifteenth birthday.
He joined the Royal Air Force at the age of seventeen and a half also as a chef and left just after doing thirteen years’ service. The thing of note during that service was being mentioned in the 1966 Queen's Birthday Honours List for services rendered.
He moved as a family to South Africa in 1966 eventually settling in Vereeniging where we lived for forty years. While in South Africa I was involved for five years with the South African Birding Atlas and was an active member of the Pretoria, Johannesburg, Vereeniging, and Wanderers Philatelic Societies this besides being a member of the British East Africa Study Circle, the Chinese Society of London, and the Royal all here in the U.K.
Jamie returned to Stockport in April 2006 and after several operations, he became a writer, a volunteer chaplain at a local hospital, a crooner with a twenty-piece swing band and became a member of two writer's societies and several philatelic societies, including Marple, Stockport and Poynton, the last of which he is present the secretary.
“My problem now is what am I going to do with the next eighty-eight years?”
He retired at 83 and having lost 75% of his hearing, singing in the swing band was tough. Even the hospital, said he was too old, can you imagine that! And due to covid, his two writer’s societies have closed down. With all that time he concentrates on producing philatelic presentations from his collections. I thought 20 would cover it but am at present working on number 90.
The purpose his collections is to be able to present at Zoom meetings worldwide, which he does, and to encourage new blood into our wonderful hobby. To achieve this, he post parts of his collections into his own site. He has a partner in that site, ‘South Africa Philatelic Club’, and onto various society sites and the internet twice a day. The postings are fed back to our club site. He will add it here. If we do not go digital, we will never get the youth interested as they are not going to read philatelic books or go to dreary philatelic meetings with a lot of dreary old grandads and grandmas. If we can show them that our hobby, covers every known subject, yes even, cigarettes, booze, money, and nudes! They are going to show interest.
“I am sorry but I have not written any specialised books, (apart from a few magazine articles and +- a thousand unpublished novels, and pieces of prose and poetry). I no longer belong to any major societies; I do not hold an important position and I don’t have any letters after my name”, but his presentations have educated and inspired thousands of viewers.
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