1st Class – Madonna and Child
Inspired by Matthew 1:23, ‘Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us’

68p – Baby Jesus in the Manger

Inspired by Luke 2:7, ‘And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn’.

£1.10 – Shepherds visited by the Angel

Inspired by Luke 2:10, ‘And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people’.

£1.65 Wise Men and Star

Inspired by Matthew 2:10: ‘When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy’.

Title: Christmas 2011 – GB
Date of Issue: 8 November 2011
Country: GB
Denominations: 2nd Class, 1st Class, 68p, £1.10, £1.65

To mark the countdown to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and its role as an official licensee of the Games, Royal Mail commissioned 30 UK artists and image makers to take part in this three-year project. The 30 stamps created to mark the 30th Olympiad and London 2012 Paralympic Games each champion an Olympic or Paralympic sport. They have been issued in three sets of ten stamps to mark the annual countdown in July 2009, 2010 and finally 2011.

Sports from each of the Olympic disciplines were selected to illustrate the subject of each stamp. The Olympic Games comprises 26 different sporting disciplines, such as Cycling. Cycling includes several different events where medals are won – including road racing, various time trials and velodrome races as well as mountain biking events and BMX. Many gold medals can be won in different events, and all will be symbolised by one Cycling stamp symbolising the sport of Cycling.

The Paralympic Games features 21 sports, such as Judo (which is also competed in the Olympic Games), as well as Paralympic specific events such as Goalball.

In all, 29 different sports are played at the Olympics and Paralympics. There will be one stamp design for each sport with the exception of athletics which will be presented across two stamps as Athletics: Track and Athletics: Field, hence 30 sport stamps.

Sheet 1: Wheelchair tennis, Fencing, Gymnastics, Triathlon, Handball;
Sheet 2: Paralympic sailing, Athletics field, Beach volleyball, Wheelchair rugby, Wrestling.

Title: Olympic & Paralympic Games 2012 – III
Date of Issue: 27 July 2011
Country: Britain
Denominations: 1st x 10

Source: www.norvic-philatelics.co.uk

Reverend Awdry’s passion for railways had been instilled in him by his clergyman father, Vere, and when Wilbert himself had a family, he shared his railway enthusiasm with his own son, Christopher. It was while two-year-old Christopher was suffering with measles that Wilbert tried to enliven his son’s bed-bound quarantine by telling stories and drawing pictures about a group of little engines.

1st Class – ‘Thomas’
‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ is a 0-6-0 tank locomotive, based on the LB&SCR E2 Class. He is painted blue with red lining and is number 1 in the North Western Railway (NWR) fleet. Thomas was given his own branch line, which he operates with his two coaches, Annie and Clarabel. He was built in 1913 and arrived on Sodor in 1915.

66p – ‘James’
‘James the Red Engine’ is a mixed-traffic engine, which means he is just as capable of pulling coaches as trucks. He has a 2-6-0 (“Mogul”) wheel arrangement and is engine number 5 on the North Western Railway, the Fat Controller’s railway on the Island of Sodor. James first appeared in the Railway Series in 1946, in the book Thomas the Tank Engine. Two books in the series, no. 3 James the Red Engine and no. 28 James and the Diesel Engines are dedicated to James.

68p – ‘Percy’
‘Percy the Small Engine’ is a saddle tank engine of indeterminate origins. He is painted green with red stripes and is number 6 in the NWR fleet. He is a cheeky little engine with a strong sense of adventure, who doesn’t let anyone push him around, which sometimes gets him into trouble. He arrived on Sodor on 1949 during a railway strike.

76p – ‘Daisy’
‘Daisy’ is a unique diesel railcar, painted green with yellow lining (similar to the livery of British Railways DMUs in the 1960s), and was built specially for use on the Ffarquhar branch of the NWR. Her number is D1 whereas she originally carried the number 52627. She was built in 1956 and arrived on Sodor in 1961. She first appeared in the book Branch Line Engines.

£1.00 – ‘Toby’
‘Toby the Tram Engine’ is a 0-6-0 steam tram engine who works on the same branch line as Thomas. He is painted brown and blue and is number 7 in the NWR fleet. He is a wise, experienced engine who knows all there is to know about running a branch line. He was built in 1903 and arrived on Sodor in 1951.

£1.10 – ‘Gordon’
‘Gordon the Big Engine’ is a ‘Pacific’ (4-6-2) tender engine. He is painted blue with red stripes and is number 4 in the NWR fleet. He is the biggest engine on the railway, and pulls the Express. He is also very boastful and proud, but good at heart. He was built and arrived on Sodor in 1922.

Title: Thomas The Tank Engine
Date of Issue: 14 June 2011
Country: Great Britain
Denominations:
1st Class – ‘Thomas’
66p – James
68p – Percy
76p – Daisy
£1.00 – Toby
£1.10 – Gordon.

Source: www.norphil.co.uk

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Humpback Whale – Megaptera novaeangliae (Average weight: 45 tonnes, total length: 13–15m)
This big, black whale with white under its tail has knobbly flippers that are longer than those of any other whale. Seen mainly in summer to the west of Britain, it arches its back to dive and feeds by sieving small fish from the water using a complex array of frilly plates found in its upper jaw instead of teeth.

Wildcat – Felis silvestris (Average weight: 5.5–6.5kg, total length: 75–110cm)
Shy and nocturnal, and now confined to the wilder parts of Scotland, the wildcat resembles a tabby cat with prominent black stripes on the body and legs. Its tail is thick and round-ended compared to the domestic cat’s thin, pointed tail, but there are many hybrids. Female wildcats can produce one family a year, in spring.

Brown Long-eared Bat – Plecotus auritus (Average weight: 6–10g, total wingspan: 26–29cm)
A small fluttery bat with enormous ears, this mammal is found throughout mainland Britain, except for the extreme north of Scotland. It commonly occurs in attics, as well as hollow trees and bird boxes, and often hovers to pick insects and spiders off trees. Completely harmless and a gentle creature, this is the bat most often found flying inside houses.

Polecat – Mustela putorius

Sperm Whale – Physeter macrocephalus (Average weight: 15–40 tonnes, total length: 10–15m)
The sperm whale, with its huge, blunt-ended head, is normally found in deep waters to the west of Britain, but occasionally strays into estuaries and gets stranded when the tide goes out. Usually solitary, the sperm whale sometimes lives in small groups. After swimming at the surface for about 10 minutes, it then dives deep for half an hour to feed, mainly on squid.

Water Vole – Arvicola terrestris (Average weight: 180–230g, total length: 29–31cm)
A rat-sized animal with a chubby face and dark chocolate-brown fur, the water vole is a good swimmer and lives beside ponds, rivers and ditches, where it digs burrows in the banks and feeds on juicy vegetation, roots and bark. It is found mainly in the lowlands, throughout mainland Britain, usually in small colonies.

Greater Horseshoe Bat – Rhinolophus ferrumequinum (Average weight: 15–30g, total wingspan: 33–39cm)
Large and broad-winged, this species of bat has a distinctive cone-shaped nose-leaf through which its echolocation sounds are focused. Its wings and ears are pale brown, and the fur is grey or buff, with a reddish tinge in older animals. Found mainly in south-west England and south Wales, it hibernates in caves, cellars and mines from October to May, wrapping its wings around its body while roosting. Its food consists of beetles and other large-bodied insects, caught in flight or snatched from the ground. In summer, females seek out warm places such as barn roofs, where, after a 75-day gestation period, they give birth to a single baby each year, nearly a third of its mother’s weight.

Otter – Lutra lutra (Average weight: 6–8kg, total length: 100–110cm)
Large, long and sleek with short legs and webbed feet, the otter is normally seen only in or beside water, where it swims and dives frequently in pursuit of fish, crabs and other aquatic food. More widespread and numerous in western counties, many live along the shores of Scotland’s sea lochs. Otters will usually live alone or in a family group of a female and one to three young.

Dormouse – Muscardinus avellanarius (Average weight: 10–30g, average body length: 12–15cm)
This golden-yellow mammal is the only British mouse with a thick fluffy tail. Found mostly in southern England, it is usually nocturnal and hibernates over the winter. Active among the branches of shrubs and trees, it feeds on flowers, fruits and insects.

Hedgehog – Erinaceus europaeus (Average weight: 500–1200g, total length: 20–25cm)
Britain’s only spiny mammal is found throughout the UK. Normally nocturnal, it snuffles about in gardens, farmland and woodland, feeding on worms, beetles and other small prey. It rolls into a tight ball when alarmed, and hibernates for five to six months over winter.

Title: Action for Species Endangered Mammals
Date of Issue: 13 April 2010
Country: Great Britain
Denominations: 1st class x 10

The backbone of the society, which is a charitable body, is its fellowship of the most eminent scientists of the day, and there are currently more than 60 Nobel Laureates amongst the society’s Fellows and Foreign Members, of which there are more than 1,400. To this day, Fellowship of The Royal Society is one the greatest honours that can be conferred on any scientist.

The origins of the society lie in an ‘invisible college’ of natural philosophers who first met in the mid 1640s and were united by a common desire to better understand the world and the universe through observation and experimentation. This spirit of empirical observation is encapsulated in the society’s Latin motto, ‘nullius in verba’, which can be roughly translated as ‘take nobody’s word for it.’

Robert Boyle, Chemistry
Boyle (1627 – 1691) was a natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, inventor, and gentleman scientist, also noted for his writings in theology. He is best known for the formulation of Boyle’s Law. Although his research and personal philosophy clearly has its roots in the alchemical tradition, he is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of modern chemistry. Among his works, The Sceptical Chymist is seen as a cornerstone book in the field of chemistry.

Sir Isaac Newton, Optics
Newton (1643 –1727) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is perceived and considered by many as one of the most influential men in history. His Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, is by itself considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton was also president of The Royal Society. The 300th anniversary of Principia Mathematica was marked by a set of four stamps in 1987.

Benjamin Franklin, Electricity
Franklin (1706 –1790) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, soldier, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He was important in the development of scientific experimentation and invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass ‘armonica’. Franklin appeared on the 11p US Bicentenary stamp issued in 1976.

Edward Jenner, Vaccination
Jenner (17 May 1749 – 26 January 1823) is widely credited as the pioneer of smallpox vaccine, and is sometimes referred to as the ‘Father of Immunology’. Jenner observed that milkmaids rarely got smallpox and concluded that exposure to the bovine disease cowpox conferred immunity a theory he tested and proved by injecting a child with pus from cowpox blisters. Jenner’s development of the smallpox vaccine was marked by a 20p stamp in the ‘Patients Tale’ Millenium set in March 1999.

Charles Babbage, Computing
Babbage, (1791 – 1871) was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer. Babbage was pictured on a 22p Scientific Achievements stamp in 1991.

Alfred Russel Wallace, Evolution
Wallace (1823 – 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist. He is best known for independently proposing a theory of natural selection which prompted the joint reading of his and Charles Darwin’s papers on evolution in 1858, and spurred Darwin to publish his own theory the following year.

Joseph Lister, Antiseptic Surgery
Lister, 1st Baron Lister, (1827 – 1912) was an English surgeon who promoted the idea of sterile surgery while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. He successfully introduced carbolic acid (phenol) to sterilize surgical instruments and to clean wounds, which led to reduced post-operative infections and made surgery safer for patients. The centenary of Lister’s discovery of Antispectic Surgery was marked by two stamps issued in 1965.

Ernest Rutherford, Atomic Structure
Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, (1871 – 1937) was a New Zealand born chemist and physicist who became known as the father of nuclear physics. He discovered that atoms have a small charged nucleus, and thereby pioneered the Rutherford model (or planetary model, which later evolved into the Bohr model or orbital model) of the atom, through his discovery of Rutherford scattering with his gold foil experiment. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908. He is widely credited as splitting the atom in 1917 and leading the first experiment to ‘split the nucleus’ in a controlled manner by two students under his direction, John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton in 1932. He was also president of The Royal Society.

Dorothy Hodgkin, Crystallography
The stamp marks the centenary of the birth of Dorothy Mary Hodgkin, (1910 –1994). She was a British chemist, credited with the development of Protein crystallography. She advanced the technique of X-ray crystallography, a method used to determine the three dimensional structures of biomolecules. Hodgkin was also the first female Briton to win a Nobel Prize. Hodgkin was also featured on a 20p ‘Famous Women’ stamp in 1998.

Sir Nicholas Shackleton, Earth Sciences
Shackleton (1937 – 2006) was a British geologist and climatologist who specialised in the Quaternary Period. Much of Shackleton’s later work helped to clarify the rates and mechanisms of aspects of climate change – a fitting subject to bring the stamp set right up to date.

Title: 350th Anniversary of the Royal Society
Date of Issue: 25 February 2010
Country: Great Britain
Denominations: 1st class x 10