1957 First Day Cover

This image does three things:

1. even though we can't make a physical link to Sutton Park, this FDC makes a conceptual link to an event that happened in the Park;

2. it is obviously the product of Royal Mail's first attempts to do a FDC at the Sutton Park Station Depot, Vacuumatic affixing machine, et al;

3. it introduces FJF into the mix because it has his design on the cover.

The commemorative stamps [for the 1957 World Scout Jubilee Jamboree] were designed by three artists, Mary Adshead (2½d value), Patrick Cokayne Keely (4d value) and William Henry Brown (1s 3d value) and printed by Harrisons onto sheets and rolls.

Mary Adshead was a significant muralist out of the Slade and designed several stamps, see:http://www.maryadshead.co.uk/

Pat Keely was a "designer of posters, press advertisements and trade matter, producing work for London Transport, Southern Railway", etc.. He's also well known for his WW2 propaganda posters, see: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/theartofwar/artists/keely_pat.htm

William Brown was a staff designer at Harrisons and Sons Ltd, who produced most of the British stamps between the 1930s and the 1980s.

The rolls of stamps were used with experimental automatic stamp-fixing equipment designed to produce first day covers, which was and built and housed in a portion of the Birmingham Postal Customs Depot adjoining Sutton Coldfield Sorting Office. Twelve different types of cover were produced by the Mayflower Stamp Co. and they cost 6s 6d each (which included a set of all three stamps). The covers were cancelled with the special postmark slogan “Jubilee Jamboree – Sutton Coldfield” and posted from the Jamboree Camp Post Office.