BOOKS: Not your usual read...

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Boro Boy
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BOOKS: Not your usual read...

Post by Boro Boy » Tue Apr 03 2018 3:17pm

This may be a little bit of a self indulgent article but if you have never heard of Nyasaland or Heligoland then read on as there are plenty more name of countries you may recall or think still exist but they all come under the same umbrella of countries which have vanished or at least just lost their individuality.

If this sparks any interest you may want to view two recently issued books:

Lost Countries: Exotic Tales From An Old Stamp Album by Stuart Laycock and Chris West is published by The History Press www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Nowherelands: An Atlas Of Vanished Countries by Bjorn Berge is published by Thames & Hudson www.thamesandhudson.com

I hope that proves of interest as they have a wealth of Q&A's for competitions... :ugeek:
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Re: BOOKS: Not your usual read...

Post by kevinchess1 » Tue Apr 03 2018 9:51pm

Heligoland?
Is that where they make stuff from tiny interlocking bricks?
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Boro Boy
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Re: BOOKS: Not your usual read...

Post by Boro Boy » Tue Apr 03 2018 10:34pm

kevinchess1 wrote:Heligoland?
Is that where they make stuff from tiny interlocking bricks?
Well one thing strange about it is it use to be British even though it is just off the German coast. I know that Queen Victoria was practically German but it still seems a surprise that this little known country use to issue stamps bearing a picture of her head on them... :o
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Re: BOOKS: Not your usual read...

Post by blythburgh » Wed Apr 04 2018 8:08am

Boro Boy wrote:
kevinchess1 wrote:Heligoland?
Is that where they make stuff from tiny interlocking bricks?
Well one thing strange about it is it use to be British even though it is just off the German coast. I know that Queen Victoria was practically German but it still seems a surprise that this little known country use to issue stamps bearing a picture of her head on them... :o
Could have come with George 1st

Countries can be very odd but none odder than ours. We are England, Great Britain, the UK and The British Isles. All correct titles but all different in more than name.
Keep smiling because the light at the end of someone's tunnel may be you, Ron Cheneler

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Re: BOOKS: Not your usual read...

Post by Constantine » Wed Apr 04 2018 3:00pm

Boro Boy wrote:
I hope that proves of interest as they have a wealth of Q&A's for competitions... :ugeek:

Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe by Norman Davies is in a similar vein. Recounts the fate of the likes of Burgundy and Alt Clud.
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Re: BOOKS: Not your usual read...

Post by Richard Frost » Wed Apr 04 2018 3:32pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heligoland
On 11 September 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars, HMS Carrier brought to the Admiralty the despatches from Admiral Thomas Macnamara Russell announcing Heligoland's capitulation to the British.[8] Heligoland became a centre of smuggling and espionage against Napoleon. Denmark then ceded Heligoland to George III of the United Kingdom by the Treaty of Kiel (14 January 1814). Thousands of Germans came to Britain and joined the King's German Legion via Heligoland.

The British annexation of Heligoland was ratified by the Treaty of Paris signed on 30 May 1814, as part of a number of territorial reallocations following on the abdication of Napoleon as Emperor of the French.

The prime reason at the time for Britain's retention of a small and seemingly worthless acquisition was to restrict any future French naval aggression against the Scandinavian or German states.[9] In the event no effort was made during the period of British administration to make use of the islands for naval purposes, partly for financial reasons but principally because the Royal Navy considered Heligoland to be too exposed as a forward base.[10]

In 1826, Heligoland became a seaside spa and soon it turned into a popular tourist resort for the European upper class. The island attracted artists and writers, especially from Germany and Austria who apparently enjoyed the comparatively liberal atmosphere, including Heinrich Heine and August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben. More vitally it was a refuge for revolutionaries of the 1830s and the 1848 German revolution.
Marriage Proposal in Heligoland by Rudolf Jordan, 1843

As related in the Leisure Hour, it was "a land where there are no bankers, no lawyers, and no crime; where all gratuities are strictly forbidden, the landladies are all honest and the boatmen take no tips", while the English Illustrated Magazine provided a description the most glowing terms: "No one should go there who cannot be content with the charms of brilliant light, of ever-changing atmospheric effects, of a land free from the countless discomforts of a large and busy population, and of an air that tastes like draughts of life itself."

Britain gave up the islands to Germany in 1890 in the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty. The newly unified Germany was concerned about a foreign power controlling land from which it could command the western entrance to the militarily-important Kiel Canal, then under construction, and other naval installations in the area, and traded for it. A "grandfathering"/optant approach prevented the Heligolanders (as they were named in the British measures) from forfeiting advantages because of this imposed change of status
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Re: BOOKS: Not your usual read...

Post by Boro Boy » Sun Apr 28 2019 12:31am

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