Navy Days Empire Exhibition
Hi, recently came across this on ebay, was there much philatelic material from the Navy Days. It was held October 14-17. Regards Glenn
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Hi Glenn.
Wow. That's nice! I am deeply envious.
I collect 'Simonstown' and have a pretty good display now with some wonderful items but there is always something that eludes me, like this. What is so great about this for me as a Simonstown collector is the fact that the flagpole flying the Royal Navy's White Ensign is rooted in Simonstown. So. WOW, again, only louder! Is this material dated 1936 (when the Empire Exhibition was held in Johannesburg)? I would love to see a scan of the contents.
I have not seen or found much Navy Week material in some ten years of collecting Simonstown. The postcard below is scarce. I had not seen one before I bought it. I was told by the seller he had not seen another one. As you can see it relates to SIMONSTOWN NAVY WEEK. The reverse is printed 'RECEIVED FROM H. M. W/T STATION' ie. wireless transmission station. This was either up on the mountain behind Simonstown (Klawer Valley) but more likely at this time refers to SLANGKOP near Kommetjie. The note on the back is the position of the HMS Neptune, a light cruiser that carried a a large contingent of seconded New Zealand and South African personnel.
I acquired the labels some year or so ago at a SACS meeting in Meriden from an attending dealer. I had not seen them previously, nor since. They are bilingual paper badges (printed one side English, Afrikaans the other) that were intended to be pinned to one's lapels or upper clothes. The two on the left have pin holes in them. I think this Navy Week stuff is scarce compared to the masses of Army and Air Force material that you more commonly find. The Royal and SA Navy were definitely the junior service in SA in terms of the numbers of serving men & women.
A SACS colleague has a great collection of Empire Exhibition covers and ephemera that includes some items like the Navy Week labels but I doubt he has anything like your Navy Week Souvenir Programme there. Empire Exhibition collectors will be drooling over it. My colleague told me, I think, that the Navy Week was annual but Navy Day was held 3/4 times a year, perhaps one day a year in each of the major ports, like PE, East London and Durban.
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Hi Steve, thank you for the information.Regards Glenn, p.s. Yes it is dated 1936.
I have had some further thoughts on this while lying in the bath.
I have a surprising number of WW2 covers from HM Ships to Johannesburg. I wonder why this is?
It suggests that many men and some women from Johannesburg volunteered to serve at sea. My guess is that they did so because a]. it seemed glamorous and far-removed from the dullness and danger of army life and b]. perhaps because many had joined the RNVR (Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve) as a result of attending the Empire Exhibition in Johannesburg in 1936, a time when the Royal Navy ruled the Waves and was the 'Senior Service'.
I attach a few images below. The first is of HMS Neptune, mentioned on the reverse of the PC above. The second and third are relatively ordinary covers sent by serving seamen from Simonstown and Durban to Johannesburg.
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Hi Steve, a few more scans .Glenn
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Thanks for the further scans which make this a more interesting thread. Sadly, I cannot view any on your images because the resolution is too low. I guess you took these with a camera. Ideally you need to scan them at full size at a higher resolution, like 200 or better, 300 dpi. I use a scanner 99% of the time.
The bottom image is at 72 dpi and therfore OK but your image is only 2.26 x 1.76 cm in size ie. very small. Resolution of 72 dpi (dots per inch) is your standard screen resolution but if you want to make the detail in the images more viewable you need to increase the size of the image and or as well as the resolution to 200 or better, 300 dpi. If you are takng photos with a camera, you will probably be capturing the image at 72 dpi.
That's okay provided that the Document Size is large, like 40 by 30 cm. This is HUGE so typically what one does is reduce the Image's Pixel Dimensions down to a Width of, say, 1000. (A pixel is one dot, as in 72 dots per inch.) This should automatically readjust the number of pixels in the height. This will make a smaller than the original photo file but it will still be viewable at a higher resolution.
I'd really like to see this material. So, if this sounds esoteric - and frankly I am not entirely sure of what I am saying - email me your original files and I will edit them and place them in your post.
Email: <postmaster@southafricanphilatelyclub.com>