COMMEMORATIVE stamps are being issued to mark the 60th anniversary of the launch of the Royal Yacht Britannia.
The book of 10 Royal Mail first-class stamps feature images of the yacht, built on the Clyde and now moored in Leith, being launched by the Queen in 1953. Her apartments and final overseas trip to Hong Kong in 1997 will also be portrayed.
During its 44 years serving the royal family, the boat sailed on 968 official voyages around the world and is believed to have travelled more than a million miles.
The yacht's barge led the Thames Jubilee pageant last June, carrying the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.
Built by workers at the John Brown shipyard in Clydebank, near Glasgow, she was launched on the Clyde on April 16, 1953. She is now attracts around 300,000 visitors a year.
The stamps are on sale from Tuesday, exactly 60 years since the Clyde launch.
Royal Mail spokesman Andrew Hammond said: "It's only fitting that HMY Britannia's anniversary should be marked with a set of Royal Mail commemorative stamps that will travel the world in the same way the yacht did for so many years."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article