Liz Hancock was only 10 years old when her father, Bruce Besant, used her silhouette in place of the Queen’s for 16 commemorative stamps featuring buildings in Chipping Sodbury in South Gloucestershire.
Around 100 were then cheekily put in the post by the jeweller for an April Fools' prank, with a handful getting through the postal system.
It was all part of an innovative idea by Mr Besant to boost trade in his high street, but it eventually got him into trouble as police seized the stamps… although not all of them.
Appearing on the BBC programme Antiques Roadshow this month, Mrs Hancock, 44, presented a sheet of the stamps along with an envelope with a stamp that had got through the system.
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“A local artist made the pictures, dad made the stamps, but then they needed the Queen’s head, which is highly illegal,” she said.
“So with me being Elizabeth, I was the obvious choice.
"He then posted them on April 1 knowing full well, tongue and cheek I suppose, that he possibly could get away it. But the police came down and seized his stamps.
“It hit the local news and did what it needed to do – trade increased.”
Mr Besant ran Crozier Jewellers in the 1980s and had already got into hot water with police when he, along with other traders, produced a Chipping Sodbury £1 note using the Queen’s silhouette.
Several years later, as business in the town slumped, he came up with the idea for the stamps, enrolling the support of local artist Alan Roberts. They featured the town’s war memorial, clock tower and church – all with a golden silhouette of Mrs Hancock.
“I remember thinking, ‘what has he done?’” said Mrs Hancock, a charity worker who lives in Thornbury.
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“The whole place was talking about it and I was quite scared I could be in trouble. But my father being my father he managed to sweet-talk himself out of any problems. The whole thing was typical of him – he was a true maverick.”
Mr Besant, now aged 71, also lives in Thornbury, close to his daughter.
At the filming of the programme at Aerospace Bristol in Patchway, valuer Matthew Haley told Mrs Hanock the stamps were worth £100. He said: “I think there must be some value – maybe the philatelist fanatical about forges and fakes would go for them.”
“It’s not quite enough to retire to the Bahamas,” said Mrs Hancock. “No, the stamps are staying in the family.”
