COVER N. 234 - MONTSERRAT
Postmark: Montserrat Postal Services Brades 06.03.2023
Posted on the 6th March; Received on the 18th April 2023
_________________________________________________________________________________
A cover heralding tragedy,,, stamps and places can summon up all kinds of memories, ideas, facts... they can be a catalyst, a trigger, a spark that ignites our dormant ROM cells where we keep all of the useful and useless pieces of information we amass over the years.
I would probably never give it a thought, these days. Yes it was tragic, yes it was in the news at the time, but Montserrat it's not just the kind of place you think of now and then... and yet, the first thing I thought about upon noticing where the great letter Eric sent me came from, was a graphic one, full of vivid images I saw ages ago on TV, when the capital of this British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean was totally engulfed by the ashes of a volcano, like a sad modern day Pompey.
I read now that at the time, 1995, 19 people died. Plymouth, although still being de jure the capital of the territory had to be abandoned by its inhabitants and is now off-limits since it is well within the exclusion zone which was created for security reasons, encompassing more than half the island.
Still life goes on and a new capital is being created in the Northwest coast of the Island, as well as a new port. A new airport had also to be built from scratch, since the 1995 eruption also submerged the old one in ashes.
Although a member of the same West Indies Federation that I wrote about for te previous entry regarding a cover from Antigua and Barbuda, unlike other territories therein included, Montserrat never became independent and, to this day, maintains its status of British Overseas Territory.
Tragedy, after tragedy
It is no secret that Norma Jean Baker lived her life like a candle in the wind, from her very beginning. Her entry into Encyclopaedia Britannica" immediately informs us she was reared by12 successive sets of foster parents and, for a time, in an orphanage. Add to that 3 marriages later in life, success and failure, problems with addictions, miscarriages, rumoured troubled affairs with the two most famous Kennedys, and the scene is set for the tragic finale that found her in bed, her life taken by an overdose of barbiturates, on the 4th August, 1962.
Still Marylyn Monroe is one of those persons that is greater than life itself and will live forever as a 20th century icon, well remembered in the inspired lines of a great song authored by another candidate to immortality.
On 13JUN1995, Montserrat issued a minisheet containing nine 1,15 Dollar stamps, all of them featuring images of Marilyn Monroe, presumably taken from some of the movies in which she starred, under the motto 100 Years of Movies (the first ever commercially exhibited film was made by the Lumière brothers, in Lyon, in 1895).
The issue also comprised a souvenir sheet featuring a stamp with Marilyn and Elvis. even though they never did participate together in a film.
On 29DEC1967, Montserrat issued the sole set for the year, comprising 4 stamps celebrating the fact that 1967 was declared the International Tourist year by the United Nations General Assembly, drawing attention to the then emerging phenomenon of cultural tourism.
Two of these stamps denominated at 15 and 5 cents are present on my cover, featuring images of the Great Alps Waterfall and a sailing boat respectively.
Upon investigating the image of the waterfall, I discovered that it had been totally covered up by ashes from a volcanic eruption in September 2007... 😟
No comments:
Post a Comment