WE welcomed Ashley Lawrence to our meeting on March 12, with his presentation on Pigeon Post and Palestine.

Pigeon Post was used by the citizens of Paris during the Siege of Paris from September 19, 1870 to January 28, 1871 during the Franco- Prussian War.

The Parisian Society of Pigeon Fanciers provided 400 homing pigeons, which were sent out on manned balloons with microphotos attached to their tails.

Ashley researched a William Brown, who was living in Paris and who wrote to his wife in England. A few balloons went astray but most of the 66 balloons were successful.

The pigeons were taken to Tours, where the headquarters of the provisional government was situated (later moving to Bordeaux).

Dagron, the instigator of the microphoto, was flown out of Paris in a balloon and the messages on the microfilms were magnified in Paris and written out by clerks.

Palestine was invaded by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force under General Allenby during the First World War, initially to protect the Suez Canal.

Allenby entered Jerusalem on foot in 1917 and defeated the Turks at Megidoo, leaving the Allies in charge of the Middle East.

Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) stamps were produced in English and Arabic with values of one piaster and five milliemes in 1918.

They were first in three shades of blue, inperf with no gum.

In July 1918, perforated new values were issued. When a civil administration replaced the military, these stamps were overprinted in English, Arabic and Hebrew.

Four new pictorial stamps came out in 1927.

These depicted Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, the Sea of Galilee from Tiberias, the Citadel of Jerusalem with David’s Tower and the Dome of the Rock.