UK Issues Stamps To Celebrate Queen’s 70th Reign
British’s multinational postal service and courier company, Royal Mail, have issued eight new stamps with photographs of different stages of Queen Elizabeth II to mark her 70-year reign.
According to News Agency of Nigeria, Sunday, February 6, 2022, would mark the Queen’s 70th anniversary on the throne. This landmark event would make her the first British sovereign in history to reach such a milestone.
Sadly, this platinum jubilee would be the first the monarch has commemorated without her husband, Prince Philip, who died in April 2021 at 99.
The death of Princess Elizabeth’s father, King George VI, on February 6, 1952, ushered in the reign of the Queen. But she was crowned at Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953.
While celebrating her silver jubilee in 1977, the Queen reaffirmed her vow of lifelong service to Britain and the Commonwealth. She embarked on a tour around the country and the Commonwealth. She also met flag-waving well-wishers during a walkabout in Camberwell in June 1977.
The Queen called the year 1992 her “annus horribilis.” That year, the Queen’s eldest son and heir, Prince Charles, separated from Princess Diana, and her second son, Prince Andrew, split from his wife, Sarah.
Her only daughter, Princess Anne, divorced her husband, Mark Phillips, and Windsor Castle, her favoured home west of London, was also seriously damaged by fire.
The Queen celebrated her golden jubilee in 2002 but it was tinged with the deaths of her mother and younger sister, Margaret.
In 2012, the Queen and other senior royals visited every region of Britain to mark her diamond jubilee.
Additionally, the London 2012 Olympics held that year and actor, Daniel Craig, alias James Bond, performed during the opening ceremony of the event.
NAN reporter that the new set of stamps features photographs of the monarch throughout the decades of her reign, illustrating the different facets of her official duties.
The Chief Executive of the Royal Mail, Simon Thompson, said, “These stamps are a celebration of the second Elizabethan Age and a tribute to a remarkable lifetime of duty and public service.
“We are honoured to be releasing them to mark the occasion of the first platinum jubilee in the UK’s history, a momentous occasion.’’
The images range from 1957 to 2020, and the earliest, in black and white, appears on a first-class stamp and shows the young Queen alongside the Duke of Edinburgh as the monarch smiles and waves during a tour of Washington DC, USA.
The other first-class stamps include the Queen smiling, in a burgundy outfit and hat, during a visit to the MI5 headquarters in February 2020; on a walkabout in Worcester in April 1980.
The monarch’s changing fashion over the years was captured in a 1966 photograph on a 1.70 dollars’ stamp, in which she wears a feathered 1960s style hat and a shift dress in Victoria Park, St Vincent, while on a tour of the West Indies.
Also, three 1.70 dollars’ stamps are from the Queen’s tour of the Provincial Museum of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada in May 2005.
The Queen’s silver, golden and diamond jubilees, were also marked with special stamp issues.
