New Royal Mail stamp collection shows 'supreme irony' over current situation in UK - Yorkshire Post Letters

Having been a keen stamp collector in the 1950s I was interested to see the imaginative new designs for postage stamps.

However, as a keen Boy Scout at the same time, I was taught that when flying the Union Flag the broader part of the white diagonal stripe should be above, not below, its inner stripe, as pictured in these designs.

This was so instilled in us that I cannot help these days looking at any Union Flag to see if it is being flown the right way up. Often our athletes, when wrapping the flag around their shoulders to celebrate success, get it wrong.

I also remember it being said (somewhere) that to fly the Union Flag upside down is an indication of distress. If that is true, then perhaps in our current situation these stamps are the supreme irony.

From: Elisabeth Baker, Leeds.

Royal Mail has produced a new set of four stamps to celebrate the achievements of the UK.

Each one is supposed to look like a quarter of the Union Flag, so that when the four different denominations are together in one sheet (with stamp collectors in mind) as pictured (The Yorkshire Post, January 15), it is quite clear that the flag is upside down.

As this is a signal of distress, is this a comment on the current unfortunate position in which the UK finds itself?