Who are we?

We have been in this business for 39 years—2011 marks our 40th anniversary—so I like to think we know what we are talking about.

There have been many changes over the years. Back in 1971, whilst living in Southampton, we dealt
mainly in special handstamps and no First Day Covers - and it was very part-time with my husband and
I both holding down full time jobs. Although my husband had started the business in 1966 as a teenager with that most famous of all events (World Cup win!), it was not until we were married and settled in the south of England that we renamed the company and decided to work at it a bit more!

Although commemorative stamps were issued from time to time, they were far from regular, until about the mid 1970s when they became increasingly more popular. At that time, we were living in Southampton and found that Stuart Covers had a small shop which we visited (Basil’s front room, actually!), and selected a handful of covers and offered those for sale in a small way to the few interested—but our customers were primarily collectors of special postmarks rather than stamps.

Stuart Covers was formed in 1965 and is the only company that has continuously produced First Day Envelopes for each commemorative stamp issue—and not even Royal Mail can say that! The Stuart logo is the thistle. GPO covers, as they were then called, started around 1968. Meanwhile, down in Bath, Paul Smith and his wife, keen collectors themselves, decided to start their own company and in view of where they lived, they decided on the name Cotswold Covers and they came into being in 1971. The Cotswold is recognisable by the gold C making a sort of frame to the left of the cover.

Paul Smith purchased Stuart Covers in 1985, continuing to run both companies side by side, until he retired in November 2003 when he sold them on to me—the rest, they say, is history!

Nowadays, we operate out of an office in the middle of Queen Ethelburga's College, an independent mixed boarding school, the site of which includes a number of other businesses so we are lucky in that we have the facilities and equipment to run a professional outfit.  Our office hours are 8.30am to 3.30pm (unless Annette is away in which case we all troll in a little later!). 

Other than me, my trusty staff comprises Annette, the Office Manager, who has been with me the longest - about 10 years now;  Jacky who is responsible for our cover designs - is art trained and she puts a lot of research into the designs to make them as accurate and interesting as possible.  She has been with me for five years now and has also seen a number of changes - not to mention the number of issues!  The new kid on the block is Sally who has just joined us and is responsible for the financial aspects of invoicing and bills - or she will be when trained up.  Unfortunately she arrived in the midst of the Festival of Stamps and Britain Alone issues, so she has had a baptism by "licking and sticking".  But she is still smiling, so long may that continue!