Our Never Ending Stamp Story.

John was 42 years old. He had never married and was not really a Ladies man at all. He preferred the company of his Cat named Hingeless and his Budgie, known affectionately asa Perfy, although John had named him perforation on account of his always nibbling the edges of tiny pieces of paper !

It was Stamp Club night and he had gone along even though he knew he would be bored to tears, so much he hated to collect First Day covers, the subject of the evening's speaker, a Miss Driscoll. Yuck! He thought to himself, First Day covers and a woman speaker. He wished he could stay at home, but he was the treasurer and dues were due !!

He was greeted at the door by a strange man in Philatelic Pyjamas !
"Hello", John asked nervously. "Er, who are you might I ask ?"
"I'm the new member, Ty Driscoll. My wife is speaking tonite and she asked me to dress like this because it was connected to her talk", the man said shyly.
"Oh dear", John said while feeling quite sorry for the this new member.

Suddenly there was huge CRASH!! on the stairs. John turned around and........

and ... it was old Lord Bodsworth Stamphoby, and long time collector and club member. He had just arrived in his double-decker bus covered in stamps & postmarks from his world travels. It a very colorful bus at that too. Lord Bodsworth always has loads of
stamp collecting materials in his bus and loves giving it away to new & young collectors.
He had been trying to juggle a dozen boxes or so as he was climbing the stairs, and everything went flying and that's when John saw...

saw it. Yes !! It was a Baby Zep, Mint. And it went flying out of the door as poor Bodsy had dropped his boxes. John had been after one of these for ages and there it was. He looked back and saw the Pyjama Man helping Bodsy with his boxes and so he crept out of the door in search of the Baby Zep.

The wind blew and down the road went the Zep. It was a howler of a night and John found it hard.......

"Black Jack" Johnson arrive dressed like Col. Sanders in a white suit & black shoe string tie. Everyone called him "Black Jack" because of he collected Confederate stamps. Strangely enough he was carrying a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket full of stamps to give Lord Bodsworth. They both had collided when Jack when up the bus steps and Bodsworth was going down the steps. Next on the scene was...

... John saw the baby zep and started chasing it down. The wind was something special that night really blowing. Then John sees a set of Hawaii Missionary stamp pass him by, then an inverted Jenny, followed by a set of Confederate postmaster provisional's, finaily a British Guiana Magenta. His heart began to raise and pound he'd only ever dream of those stamps let alone seeing them blowing by.

Soon every at the meeting was aware of what was happening.
Lord Bodsworth simply with a deep chuckle "Let's follow those stamps".
The CSA PM provisionals. Stamphoby was going to give Black Jack, whom did not wish to see them go so easily.
Lord Bodsworth yell out "All aboard the bus", what adventures lay ahead for
the collectors club as his crew. As the followed John & the stamps..

Next on the scene was Lilly LaWatermark, the spinster daughter of the club's recently departed founding father and ex-convict, Serge Semipostal. When she saw the Zepp fly out the window she nearly lost her knickers because that was the one issue she needed to complete her father's stolen collection.

She screamed a blood curdling oath causing "Black Jack" Johnson to spill the schnapps he was drinking all over his suit. Running out the door, she . . .

..she literaaly flew with the wind onto the bus, where Black Jack,Bodsy and the Pyjama man were eagerly eyeing John who was chasing the stamps. But this was an old Bus and it went chugging, not like one of those lovely London Buses that......

that...I was joking about the bus, really it is the same as those lovely London Buses, even better with the entire vehicle covered in postmarks and stamps from all the wonderful places Lord Bodsworth had visited in his travels around the world.
With everyone on-board the bus, 'cept for John whom was still
chasing after those great stamps that were blowing away in the very strong wind.
John was running, the stamps were blowing, the bus was chugging, & John running, the stamps blowing with the bus chugging along like it seemed like it would never end.
Then John was clearly saw the inverted Jenny blowing towards a babbling brook. John knew this could be the cancellation of that stamp and had to act quickly.
John turned back to the Bus and yelled "Tongs", then Bods, (for short) flipped a pair of tongs over to Black Jack who then but them inside a glassine envelope, then sent it air mail to John. He reached back catching it with his left hand and removes the tongs with his right hand. Then John saw he had only inches to go, only seconds left, he leaps forward leading with his right hand and of course the tongs. A cloud of dust rising from around John crashing into the ground. Everyone's a gasped. As the dust clears you begin to see John's silhouette and he exclaims, "I've got it!"
Everyone cheers, 'cept Bods whom just does his deep chuckle while John inserts the inverted Jenny into the glassin envelope. One down several to go.

While all this was going on Mrs Driscoll was going through presentation & entertaining the members. Ty still was not sure why his wife asked him to dress in this manner. Time will tell, he figured.
Ty was conversing with Lily for she had found the 1902 King Edward VII pound stamp at the bottom of the stairs, it was too heavy to blow away like the others.
Suddenly, there was a loud bang, Bods yells "Woo Nelly! We have a flat tire"
Lily yells out, "What are we going to do. All the stamps are getting away."
"Not to worry" states Bods as he pulls out a NASCAR stamp placing over the hole in the tire. "How do we air it up", quipped John. Bods just smiled and removed an old worn out Zep from his right pocket of his cloak and inserted it into the valve stem of the tire filling it helium from the Zep. Bods laughing around his words, "There is magic, about and adventure at hand" and they continued on.....

...since only 1 tire on the bus had helium in it Lord Bodsworth was finding it hard to stay on the road. The whole bus ended up in the drink. A box of onpaper stamps was now ready to be dried. At this point you will never guess who appears....

.....yes, it was Mrs Driscoll. She had completed her talk on CTO First Day covers, was angry that her Ty was still in deep conversation with Lily and so took the chance of a Taxi catching up with either John or the Bus. As it happened, she caught the bus first and how displeased they were to see her step aboad...after all, they more enjoyed the classics while she was for First Day covers. What would they talk about, Stampy pyjamas??
They continued to chugg along but by this time, John was out of sight.Maybe he had fallen down a manhole...or even a womanhole! It was a bit frustrating but then 'Black Jack' had a great idea.
"What if we......"

"What if we...start throwing packets of stamps to the people we are passing by?" Just imagine a double decker bus careening down the road full of high spirited and unusually dressed collectors tossing stamps all willy-nilly to whomever they encounter. All shouting in unison & jubilantly "Collect stamps the hobby of kings!"

They all agreed it would be a fine way to gather more collectors into the Philatelic fold, thus making the search for John more widespread.
By now, John had done a runner of philatelistic proportions. He had swam through the sewage of the manhole [or womanhole] and managed to find his way back home where Hingeless and Perfy were jumping up and down with excitement upon his return. He told them he was not home for long because he had to go to London to seek out a shop by the name of Stanley Gibbons in the Strand,London. It would be painful to leave his beloved pets but knew they would be in good hands with the neighbour.
He packed his bags, dropped of Hingeless and Perfy and hopped in a taxi for the airport. He just loved to hop did John.
Meanwhile, back at the bus......