My Cover of the Day 2nd April

[Chris Grimshaw]

Well Team
First off the mark today.

Staying with WWI but something different for me,  The Somme.

FSPC written on the 2nd July,1916 not cancelled and looking as though a size 11 stood it into the mud.  One its own would be totally dismissed if seen in a dealers box but in the context of a large correspondence from this chap makes sense.

1/14th London Scottish suffered large scale casualties on the 1st July,  not certain if he went over the Top or was in the cadre retained which a battalion left behind in a major attack.  However he survived at least on this occasion.

Chris

[Peter Harvey]

Pipped at the post.....

Hi folks, here is my cover of the day. I know it is rather battered and certainly bruised but it is very unusual for a British FPO cover.

So a longer commercial envelope from a Shipbuilding and Engineering company in Kure City Japan, sent to HQ B.C.F.K. Kure Japan (BCFK is British Commonwealth Forces Korea) cancelled Japanese cancellation and the boxed datestamp CENTRAL REGISTRY 14 DEC 1954 HQ____ (the assumption being that this was applied on arrival. To reverse shows the s/r British F.P.O. 949 - 13 DE 54 - used in Kure from late 1951 to late 1956.

Any comments (other than its terrible condition)

Peter

[Chris Grimshaw]

For completeness I attach a letter of 4th August 1916 he wrote to his Mother,  only mention he makes of 1st July.  We only see one side or in this case one quarter of a correspondence, he was also writing to his wife of which nothing survives,  No incoming mail also has survived. 

One a what at the time were millions of family correspondence.

Chris

[Chris Weddell]

Here is my cover of the day. This is a little different for me as well. I like undercover mail posted from aboard to British address then redirected to serving Allied, Commonwealth and British troops here in the UK.

This cover was posted from Switzerland via air mail and censored and resealed in I should think Austria then carried on its journey to a Lloyds bank in London where it was redirected to it's real address to a new recruit of the 58th (Young Soldiers)Training Regiment, Royal Armoured Corps, Elles Barracks, Farnborough.