A follow-up to SIA Nostalgia

Posted by Tan Wee Kiat under National History
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With an interest in Singapore stamps, my first reaction after reading any yesterday.sg posting is to ask, “Are there any stamps relevant to this?” And with the posting of noelbynature’s “Singapore Airlines Nostalgia“, the answer is positive. In fact there was a special issue of SIA stamps as early as June 1973:

The 35-cent stamp tells us the number of cities that SIA had flights to in 1973. There are 12 cities in each of the two columns of names, so this means 24 cities altogether. Nowadays, SIA planes fly to more than 24 cities. How many exactly? Well, that’s your homework.

Incidentally, since we are talking about SIA and air travel, here’s a little riddle for you. Which Singapore VIP has compared air travel (on the supersonic Concorde) to travelling by bullock cart? Below are stamp images of the two forms of transport.

Here’s the statement from the VIP’s autobiography (page 32),

“Fifty years later, in 1977, as I travelled in a Concorde from London to New York in three hours, I wondered if any of my fellow passengers had ever experienced the joy of a bullock-cart ride.”

You can deduce that the bullock-cart ride took place in 1927, when the VIP was very young and Singapore was very “ulu”. Who is the Singapore VIP? Well, that’s your homework.

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