A tribute to Robert Laidler

Robert Laidler was a stamp dealer and for the last three or four years he sent me approvals. I talked about him last year when I wrote this. Sadly, not so long ago Robert passed away.

I didn't know him very well and I never met him in person, but I miss him. Why?

Well, he was such a nice person. When he sent stamps to me every month, he would always include a letter to my dad and I think they talked about football, cricket, stamps ad politics as well as about the places they lived. He lived in Scarborough and seemed to really like the place. He would ask how I was doing and my dad would tell him. He would send me a Christmas card and a calendar.

He wasn't just any stamp dealer. He took an interest in me. Of course he wanted to know what I liked to collect. But he went beyond that. He liked me giving feedback on my purchases, and he was very happy when I wrote the post about approvals last year. He encouraged me to think about showing my stamps, and I did that last year in the Stamp Active competition. I even won a prize.

He really liked the fact I am a young person interested in stamps. He said his own grandchildren were never interested in collecting and so I think he enjoyed not just selling me stamps but teaching me about them and sharing his knowledge.

He was definitely knowledgeable. There is not much he didn't know about stamps. However, last year when I went to Lundy, we bought him some Lundy stamps and sent them to him as a gift. He really liked these but admitted he didn't really know much about them. He got in touch with the Lundy Post Office after this and I believe he ordered some more for his collection.

He would often send me free gifts along with the selection on approval. These were often things he thought I would like based on my interests. At other times he would give me items that he wanted to tell me about to expand my knowledge. I got a lot of older stamps and his explanations were really good.

One of the last items he sent me as a gift was this:

This was quite normal. He would send a stamp or a cover - a little piece of history - give me a bit of information and let me find out more! In this case I discovered a lot about the Hans Hedtoft. It sank on its maiden voyage and was a terrible tragedy. I also looked into older Greenland stamps, which I didn't really know anything about.

Robert knew how to encourage me as a young collector. He didn't just see me as another customer but as a young person who shared his interest in the world's greatest hobby.

Some people will say that young people aren't interested in colleting stamps. I think sometimes the problem is that a lot of people don;t know how to make stamp collecting interesting to young people. Perhaps if there were more people like Robert Laidler in the world things would be different.