Tristan da Cunha Stamps

Tristan Song Project
Issue date: 14th February 2013

The Tristan Song Project is an unlikely collaboration between children from the most remote inhabited island in the world and pupils from Norfolk, England.

In 2009, Norfolk's Tony Triggs, a private teacher of music, contacted the Education Advisor at St Mary's School on Tristan da Cunha suggesting that if St Mary's pupils wrote poems he and his own young pupils could turn them into songs.

The Tristan Song Project succeeded beyond their expectations. The island children soon had a repertoire of songs to perform for visiting tourists, and some appeared in Rockhopper Penguins and Other Songs, with profits providing St Mary's School with guitars and other instruments.

The Tristan Project is a model for similar projects worldwide and further information may be found at www.NorfolkMusicSchool.com

The issue consists of four stamps, each with an image or part image of a musical instrument traditionally found on the island or supplied by the Project, along with words from some of the Project songs and jauntily-presented music notation.

The 35p (recorder) stamp quotes the nonsense song "When Fish Get the Flu".

The 45p (violin) stamp has words from "Rockhopper Penguins," reflecting the waddling antics of these much-loved island inhabitants.

The 70p (guitar) stamp features "The Volcano's Black," whose menacing words match the smouldering menace of Tristan's volcano.

The £1.10p (accordion) stamp contains words from "The Molly" (albatross), a bird whose cry haunts the island's gaunt cliffs.

Each stamp will be available in an individual sheet of 10. In the border, lively artwork shows a youngster playing the featured instrument, plus additional lyrics matched with their own authentic notation.

The First Day Cover combines the pieces of artwork to show the children playing together and evidently performing one of the songs with great abandon!