An Irishman's Diary

'HIS WIFE's a supermodel 13 years his junior, so how does the French president spend his spare time?" asked Britain's Daily Mirrorrecently. The tabloid answered its own leering question by revealing that "Sarkozy collects stamps", and commented: "With such a gorgeous young wife you'd think he might have another passion in mind when not running France."

Well, whatever the Mirror's view, I think it is splendid news that the leader of Europe's most important country has such a sober, edifying and relaxing hobby. Wouldn't we all be far better off – and a good deal happier - if senior figures in our own "establishment" had engaged in such a gentle pastime instead of boozing in the Dáil bar, betting at the races or skedaddling off to watch "Man U"? The president apparently wrote to the French Federation of Philately Associations and delighted them by saying: "I share your passion for stamps. I have been a stamp collector since I was a young boy – this hobby is an opening to the world, to history and great events." But even Mr Sarkozy's, er, stamp of approval may not be enough to rescue this most charming of hobbies.

Ask a child these days if he’d like to see your Vatican City JFK memorial issue or a pristine set issued to mark Mongolia’s 18th Communist Party Congress (1983). . .On second thoughts, don’t bother. Philately is out of fashion with the PlayStation generation, for whom the Gold Coast is a suburb of San Andreas, the virtual city of “Grand Theft Auto”. Today’s schoolboys would hardly believe that many of their predecessors could tell Armenia from El Salvador, knew the importance of the Trucial States and needed only a pair of tweezers, some hinges and an “assorted pack” to occupy a wet afternoon.

If they were lucky, the selection would include some corking triangular specimens from the CCCP (the old USSR in thrillingly exotic Cyrillic) featuring pictures of Cosmonauts glowing with Soviet realist colour. Or those fabulous Bulgarian stamps featuring hermaphrodite female javelin-throwers or weightlifters with biceps the size of basketballs.

And many a boy daydreamed about some day finding a rarity like the Swedish “Treskilling Yellow”, a British Guiana 1856 Magenta or at least a Penny Black. Starting a collection involved steaming stamps off envelopes by holding them over the spout of a foaming kettle – a tricky operation. Children faced stiff competition from women in the Legion of Mary who collected the stamps for “the Missions”. (Used stamps were collected and sent off to an office in Dublin which apparently made up “Assorted Éire” packs to sell to collectors in other countries thereby raising funds to help feed “the Black Babies”.)

The odd postcard from abroad can still be found in the back of a drawer or atop a linen cupboard in rural houses with a square torn out of the top right-hand corner. Not only is the mugshot of General Franco gone but, on the picture side, one of the Flamenco dancer’s castanets is missing and the disfigured beach scene from Torremolinos depicts a headless donkey.

Like many of the best things in life – the railways, gin and tonic, flushing toilets and clean hospitals – both stamps and stamp-collecting were invented by the Victorians. The world’s first postage stamps, bearing the head of Queen Victoria and known as “Penny Blacks” — went on sale in London in 1840. To this day Britain is the only country in the world whose stamps do bear the country’s name. It was George V, who reigned from 1910 to 1936, who made stamp-collecting really fashionable. He reputedly spent three afternoons a week devoted to the pleasure and filled 300 albums which are worth an estimated £100 million today. They are now part of the Royal Philatelic Collection – stored at St James’s Palace in London and considered to be the best stamp collection in the world.

The British duly acknowledged Mr Sarkozy’s interest in philately during his state visit to London last year when Queen Elizabeth presented him with a set of stamps issued by the Post Office in 2004 to celebrate the centenary of the entente cordiale. Mr Sarkozy was also given a leather album full of stamps by California’s governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

According to the Daily Telegraph, “Mr Sarkozy is said to pursue his hobby during the evenings, regularly allowing Carla to inspect his albums. She, in turn, has confided to friends that she is glad he no longer spends his evenings karaoke singing, as he used to in his bachelor days.”

But despite the commendable example being set by the Elysée Palace, stamp collecting appears to be quite out of favour among Irish children and is going the way of other wholesome hobbies such as wild-bird egg collecting, netting butterflies, blackberry-picking, snaring rabbits, Cowboys and Indians, robbing orchards and playing marbles. A revival looks unlikely. Unless, of course, someone develops a virtual stamp-collecting “game”.