Franking Labels 2011

On 28 September 2011 four new franking labels have been issued. This is the fourth time Faroese franking labels are being issued. 

The motifs on this year's franking labels is an old rhyme, "Kú mín í garði" (My cow in the alley) and they are designed by the Faroese artist, Janus Guttesen.

The oldest nursery rhymes we know are probably poems or songs for children which were recited or sung to very simple tunes. In the Faroese dictionary we can see that these were “old rhymes passed on by oral tradition, which were sung repeatedly for children.”
 

My cow in the alley
My cow in the alley,
My mare in the valley,
My steed on the cliff,
My hen on the ladder.
“Bah, bah, bah,”
Says my ewe in the shed,
“I need some grass to chew on.”
 

(Translation: Anker Eli Petersen)

Welcome the 8000th Visitors

Aqui ficam as melhores saudações Filatélicas, para os visitantes de todo o mundo, que diariamente visitam o meu blog.

(English version)

Here are the best Philatelic greetings to visitors from all over the world who daily visit my blog.

Christmas Carols II

There are songs which seem to enter people's consciousness easier than others. Songs, which for some reason touch something deep in our minds. Words, storyline and tune, which together create a familiar image - a memory, a dream or just the feeling of an idealized moment.

These are the characteristics of the classics, and this year's carols are examples of those exact qualities. Although quite different in expression, both songs manage to create impressions and images of the indefinable pleasure and anticipation that we all associate with our childhood’s Christmas

I can’t wait for Christmas to come
The motif of the 6.50 stamp is based on the modern Faroese Christmas classic, "Eg eri so spent til jóla" – “I can’t wait for Christmas to come.” The music was written by Jóhannus á Rógvu Joensen and lyrics by Ella Smith Clementsen.
The song and the story is, briefly, about the six-year old Margreta who has problems with controlling her longing and expectations for Christmas. In her restlessness she goes out for a walk and in Tórshavn’s old café, she meets a pixie-girl, who takes her out on adventures that only six year olds can experience.

Ella Smith Clementsen b. 1952 is one of the most famous children's authors on the Faroes. She has written and translated a large amount of children's books, children's songs and pieces for radio and television and works as a freelance writer. In 1994, Ella recieved Tórshavn town council children's book prize.

In 1989, Ella Smith Clementsen together with composer and musician Jóhannus á Rógvu Joensen b. 1959. Ella had written some children's songs which Jóhannus set to music. When Jóhannus approached her about writing a few extra songs, Ella wrote "I can’t wait for Christmas to come," which has since proved to be one of the most popular Christmas and children's songs ever on the Faroe Islands.

The rest is history. The six-year Margreta who was looking forward to getting a new dress and went out on an adventure with the pixie girl, walked straight into the Faroese cultural consciousness and has stayed there ever since. A small figure with great symbolic importance for the modern view of Christmas.

I rejoice every Christmas Eve
131 years before Ella Smith Clementsen sat by the window and wrote her little Christmas song, another woman was doing exactly the same.
On Christmas Eve 1858, 26 year old Marie Wexelsen (1832-1911) sat in the parents' kitchen in Sukkestad, Norway, waiting for the Christmas guests to arrive. As she sat there and looked out the window, she came to think of her childhood Christmas, and began in her mind to formulate a Christmas song. A few days earlier she had completed a short story "Kjetil - A little Christmas present for the child", and the poem she puzzled with, should be the introduction to the story.

The story of Kjetil was published in 1859 and subsequently in several new editions. But while few people today know the story itself, the poem in the introduction became one of the greatest Nordic Christmas classics, namely the song "Jeg er saa glad hver julekveld". The song has been translated into all Nordic languages ​​and also to Faroese titled "Eg gleðist so hvørt jólakvøld" by Dean Jákup Dahl.

It's hard to imagine a Christmas without the warm singing of childlike faith, and the beautiful picture of mother who walks around in the house and lighten all candles. For life, for family, her own child and the Infant Jesus.

Marie Wexelsen was also a child of her time. She lived at home with parents until their death, and then, from 1880, in Christiania (now Oslo), where she was a teacher at Hamar. In 1890 Marie and her older sister Rikki moved to Trondheim, where they ran a small school. Marie, who remained unmarried throughout life, was strongly influenced by the Grundtvigian outlook, which broke with the dismal Christianity, and called for educating and informing the people. She wrote three novels, three children's books, a series of poems and various articles on social affairs, religion and language policy issues. One senses a protest against society's oppression of women in her writings, but like so many other women of her time, her involvement in social conditions was partly rooted in a bright and positive Christianity.

When Marie Wexelsen died in Trondheim in 1911, children with lighted candles sang: "I rejoice every Christmas Eve" at her funeral.

Two very different songs, but with so many similarities. Wexelsens childlike joy over the message of Christmas and the little Christ child - or Smith Clementsens captivating tale about the girl who looks forward to getting a new dress and her travel in the mythical universe of Christmas. Both are classics and remind us to stay in the holiday’s purest form - Christmas seen through the hopeful eyes of a child.

Anker Eli Petersen

Technical data:

Values: stamps of 6.50DKK and 10.50DKK

Date of issue: 28-IX-2011

Author: Anker Eli Petersen

Perforation:

Technique: Offset

Printer: Enschedé, Netherlands

Vintage cars

Each vintage car featured on our stamps has its own unique story. The black lorry was the first vehicle to arrive in the Faeroe Islands in 1922. The red bus that operated between Vestmanna, Kvívík and Kollafjørður was converted from a tanker and the home-made ‘De Luxe Model’ on the third stamp was the first car on the island to have a cassette player and loudspeakers.

The first car on the Faeroe Islands

The first car arrived on the island on 6 May 1922 when Johannes Olsen and Júst Sivertsen from Tórshavn bought a Ford TT truck from Wenzel Petersen and Vilhelm Nielsen, who had a forge in Quillingsgård in Tórshavn.

The car was ferried to the Faroe Islands on the DFDS vessel S/S Island. As the ship was unable to dock, the car was hoisted onto a yacht, which unloaded the cargo at Kongebro marina in Tórshavn.

The car caused a sensation when it arrived in Tórshavn because the islanders had never seen a car before. The Faroe Islands had horse-drawn carriages at the time, although not many. Arthur Brend, however, was the first to own a ‘motorised’ vehicle on the island. In the autumn of 1921 he purchased a motorbike, which received a great deal of press in the local newspapers at the time.

Back in 1922, nobody on the quayside knew how to drive a car. It was therefore pushed up to the forge in Quillingsgård. A few days later the newspapers were able to report that the car had made several journeys between Tórshavn and the sanatorium in Hoydalar.

Morris Commercial Cars Ltd.England Model 1929

This commercial vehicle arrived in Kvívík on 14 June 1934. Originally from Hillerød’s Police District and owned by Nordsjællands Benzin Co., it had been without licence plates for several years. When the vehicle arrived on the island it had no body, i.e. the cab and hood were normal but there was no load or cab on the vehicle.

The plan was to take the cab from the Chevrolet bus in service at the time and fit it onto the vehicle’s chassis. The vehicle had functioned as a tanker in Zealand and as a lorry for a time.

However, these plans came to nothing, as Fritleif Johannesen from Tórshavn had heard about the vehicle and had travelled to Kvívík to take a closer look at it. His idea was to build a cab on top of the vehicle, i.e. an extension to the existing cab. He planned to build a so-called ‘omnibus’. His plans went ahead and on 12 June 1935 the vehicle was registered and approved as a mail and passenger bus between Vestmanna, Kvívík and Kollafjørður.

‘De Luxe Model’ built on the Faeroe Islands

In the mid-1950s a home-made Faroese car drove through the streets of Tórshavn. It belonged to the Norwegian Almar Nordhaug, who built the car together with his colleagues at the barrel factory in Tórshavn.

It was not unusual to convert cars in the Faroe Islands in the mid-20th century, but the car they built at the factory was unique and far ahead of its time.

This was the first car on The Faroe Islands to have a cassette player and no fewer than four loudspeakers. The car generated quite a lot of attention when it attended horse shows because the music disturbed the horses and made the riders furious.

When Nordhaug moved back to Norway he took the car, which was on Faroese number plates, with him and continued to drive it in Norway for several years. Unfortunately, the car is no longer in existence. The last reliable report we had said that it was being used as part of a decorative display in a furniture store in Oslo.

Sources:“Postur í Føroyum”, Vilhelm Johannesen, 2000, “Bilar”, Magnus Gunnarsson, interview with Viggo Johannesen.

Technical data:

Values: three stamps of 13.00DKK

Date of issue: 28-IX-2011

Author: Edward Fuglø

Perforation:

Technique: Offset

Printer: Enschedé, Netherlands

SEPAC 2011

Connection to the Landscape

Landscape photography is universally appreciated by all, in part because all humans have a connection to the physical world our ancestors have walked for millennia. Of course, this connection to the environment in which we live is felt stronger by some, especially by outdoor photographers and by people who live more dependently off the land. The Faroese people, for example, have this deeper connection to the natural world; it is inescapable and unforgettable wherever one goes among the Faeroe Islands. There are no big cities to get mentally lost in and forget about what lies beyond – only picturesque villages in idyllic settings nestled along the ocean and backed by mountains. As a professional landscape and adventure photographer myself, I spend much of my life in the outdoors, exploring the land via my feet or via my camera, and thus I feel deeply connected to nature as it provides part of life's meaning to me. I would lose touch with reality if I stayed away from the landscape too long.  

The Faeroe Islands are among the most visually and spiritually alluring islands I've visited on my travels to many wilderness places in the world, and part of what makes them special is the feeling of closeness to the land that they generate, being small windswept islands in the middle of the vast and cold North Atlantic Ocean. I first saw the Faeroe Islands from the deck of the large Smyril Line ferry while travelling between Iceland and Norway, on route to photograph the Aurora Borealis of the Arctic night sky. What initially impressed me were the striated layers upon layers of the pyramidal shaped mountains rising out of the middle of the ocean. I had never seen such visually unique and appealing mountains such as these, and immediately felt the land calling to me, beckoning me to come explore and stand on its narrow mountain ridges with the white-capped ocean channels surrounding me on all sides. I stayed for a mere week in the Faroe Islands, on my return to Iceland after surviving week-long solo snowshoe and ski trips in -22°C weather in some wilderness of northern Norway. The wind, though blowing fiercely, was warm, moderated by the ocean waters surrounding, and I felt true freedom as I wandered the Faroese hills. But I also felt secure, unlike in Norway, looking down from the mountainsides at the idyllic little fishing villages nestled cozily into each cove along the shoreline. Ubiquitous tunnels brought me through mountains and dipped me under the sea, only to have me re-emerge in a totally new and enchanting valley, on another island altogether. 

The photos you see here and on a Faroese postage stamp illustrate my passion in life to explore and photograph our world's wilderness areas. Photography also helps me to slow down in my wanderings and notice the details and wonder at the beauty that nature exhibits every day, all over the world, whether anyone is there to witness it or not. A main goal in my photography is to make the viewer of the photograph feel like they are really in the scene, and not just looking at a photograph, and I feel the encompassing panoramic format helps to achieve this feel. I believe that if a viewer feels they are part of the scene, they will connect with it, and the wilderness landscape it depicts, better. Connection with the landscape then leads a person to value it, which leads to true appreciate and even better connection to the natural world. 

The Faroe Islands I am sure allure many travellers and residents, as they still do to me. I can only imagine the idyllic fields of wild flowers and green grassy mountainsides of summertime sweeping down into the ocean. In summer 2011 I'm leading a photography workshop and tour circumnavigating Iceland, another enchanting and friendly yet wild island, which I've fallen in love with. But I can feel the Faeroe Islands calling out to me again across the Atlantic Ocean; and if I can hear their call all the way over here in North America, don't you think I might feel their call to me even more strongly and loudly, while I sit atop a mountain of the East Fjords of Iceland, looking out across the Atlantic to the east, knowing what lies beyond that watery horizon? 

Jonathan Esper

Technical data:

Values: one stamps of 10.50DKK

Date of issue: 28-IX-2011

Author: Jonathan Esper

Perforation:

Technique: Offset

Printer: LMGroup, Canada