Postcard from Mons Calpe

Found at the last Montpellier stamp show in March, this nice looking holiday postcard posted in Gibraltar to Rezé, France.

Card #12 edited by Estoril Ltd., 9 Main Street, Gibraltar ; still existing believing the local yellow pages.

The Rock with South District on the foreground. The rest of the city and the port on the right ; Spain in the background.

At one euro it's a bargain to keep day-dreaming on an Andalou-British trip in 2017.

Cancel on August 9th 1990 with a illustrated manage for the Rotary International campaign of vaccination against polio.

It was posted a French woman (and possibly her husband with a more English first name) to a relative or a friend in Rezé, suburbs of Nantes, in Loire-Atlantique, on August 9th 1990.

She wrote that she was beginning the fifth month of a pregnancy. She would be soon in Madeira and that, from there, she would come back to Nantes for the 30th, if she found a charter plane ("low cost" was not the expression back then). Holidays by Mediterranean steps? A cruise?

The stamp represents the crest of the H.M.S. Calpe, issued the previous tenth of July.

The Wikipedia in English informs us there were three British naval use of the Latin name of Gibraltar, all linked to the colony.

The first ship of that name was a 1796 Spanish ship, captured 1800 by the British and she served at the battle of Algeciras in 1801, in front of Gibraltar. She was sold in Lisbon 1802.

 The stamp of 22 pence evoked the second one, a Hunt class destroyer, launched 1941 to protect convoys during World War 2. In 1942, as the invasion of French North Africa was in preparation, she was sent to protect Gibraltar. After the war it was lent then sold to the Danish navy and served until 1966. A painting of the ship served on a 5pence stamp issued 1995.

Finally, since 1965, Calpe is the name of the Royal Navy reserve base in Gibraltar.