Product Description
13 March 2008 - Mayday! Rescue at Sea set on Royal Mail first day coverRoyal Mail marked the centenary of the adoption of SOS as the worldwide standard distress signal with a set of 6 stamps highlighting the actions of the crews of Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and the Maritime and Coast Guard Agency (MCA) who regularly risk their own lives attempting to save those of others.
These stamps have a perforation never seen before on British stamps, the horizontal perforations being in the form of dots and dashes spelling SOS in Morse.
The stamps show:
1st class - Severn Class Edna Windsor Barra Island, Outer Hebrides;
46p - Tyne class - George Gibson Appledore, Devon;
48p - Sikorsky S61N Portland, Dorset;
54p - D Class Colin Bramley Parker St Ives, Cornwall;
69p - Sikorsky S61N helicopter Lee-on-Solent, Hampshire;
78p - Tamar Class Haydn Miller Tenby (Dinbych-Y-Pysgod), Pembrokeshire
The Royal Mail first day cover, postmark choice:
- Devonport Royal Dockyard, Plymouth
- Poole, Dorset
- Port William, Dumfries and Galloway
