A STAMP collector commemorated Team GB’s triumphs with hours of hard work and trips to the Post Office.
Carole Goldberg spent the two weeks of the Olympics eagerly awaiting the next British gold medal and the Royal Mail’s special issues to go with it.
The business consultant from Wealdstone bought examples of all the limited edition stamps as soon as they were available.
First class stamps were printed for every GB first place achieved – a total of 29 golds. They were on sale the following day, meaning some post offices had to open on Sundays during the Games.
Harrow Post Office in College Road provided this service and Ms Goldberg made sure she had all the special stamps.
She also got them hand-stamped on the day of issue with unique postmarks showing the Olympic Stadium address.
Ms Goldberg said: “I would like to thank the people in the post office for their hard work. One lady, Naina Patel, has been amazing, she is my super stamper.
“It takes a lot of painstaking work to mount the stamps in the right way.”
Ms Patel, customer service consultant at the post office, branch manager Jonathan Fletcher and the rest of the team have been working hard to cope with the increase in demand for the commemorative stamps.
Ms Goldberg collected at least two examples of each stamp, a total of 159, and mounted them on 20 special first day covers. They received a total of 74 individual postmarks.
Ms Patel, who did all the stamping, said: “I never realised that I’d done so many. I felt a bit nervous at the start about stamping the first day covers and getting the hand stamp lined up exactly right but, after doing a few, I was used to it. It’s been quite fun and I’ve really enjoyed doing them.”
Mr Fletcher said: “The stamps have definitely been a success – it has been unprecedented.
“We have had to open on a Sunday throughout the Olympics and it has been really busy.
“I certainly won’t ever see anything like this again in my lifetime. I have really enjoyed the Olympics as a whole and thought Mo Farrah in the 10,000 metres was great.”
