“Jamie Smith was born in Warwickshire in January of 1935. He lived in Stratford upon-Avon for seventeen years and this is where he began collecting stamps. He left school at the age of fourteen and started training to be a chef four days after his fifteenth birthday. He joined the Royal Air Force at the age of seventeen as a chef and left the service after serving thirteen years.
In 1966 he moved as a family to South Africa, eventually settling in Vereeniging for the next forty years. While in South Africa he was an active member of the Pretoria, Johannesburg, Vereeniging, and Wanderers Philatelic Societies. At the same time, Jamie held U.K. memberships in the British East Africa Study Circle, the Chinese Society of London, and the Royal Philatelic Society of Great Britain.
In 2006, Jamie returned to Stockport in the U.K. soon becoming a member of several local philatelic groups, however; the only society he currently belongs to is Poynton, where he serves as Secretary.
Jamie retired at the age of 83. Over time he’s lost 75% of his hearing, consequently he’s had to pre-record his Zoom presentations. Adél Bulpitt, a close friend and philatelic associate, has greatly assisted Jamie technically in the project as well as assisting with the actual Zoom presentations.
With newfound time on his hands, the question became, what to do with the next eighty-eight years? The answer became a project to digitally produce philatelic presentations from his many collections. What started out as 20 presentations has grown close to 90.
Jamie’s wish is to create philatelic programs that can be shared globally using digital tools such as Zoom. He wants very much to encourage new blood into our wonderful hobby. He also believes that the hobby must go digital to capture the interest of the youth market, he feels, old-school philatelic books and stuffy meetings probably won’t even be on their radar.
