Who remembers the good old Green Shield Stamp Days

We used to collect them when our first two children were babies. There was only a year between them.

One lunchtime I was planning to stick a sheet of stamps in the book but left them on the coffee table while I put my feet up with a cuppa. The baby was down for a nap and DD snuggled up alongside me on the sofa. As I nodded off I thought it was sweet that she was stroking my face.

I was woken up by a knock at the door. Our post used to come quite late as we lived outside the village and a parcel was being delivered. The usually friendly postman gave me a funny look and didn't stop for a chat!

As I walked back through the hallway I caught sight of myself in the mirror. The whole of the right side of my face was covered in Green Shield stamps!

Oh I do- some of my best kitchen aids we got with GS stamps- and still going strong today, 50 years later.

I hated sticking the blooming stamps in

A friend of mine was heavily pregnant with her first baby and she had to go to an ante natal appointment at St Mary's Hospital. Just before she was called in, she was given the obligatory jug and told to go and collect a sample of her pee. She did as asked but when she came to dry herself, she found that there was no toilet paper in her cubicle so she rummaged around in her handbag and found a tissue. Job done, she went in to see the doctor and had to get up on the bed and lie down ready for an internal examination. But as the doctor bent over her, both he and the nurse turned away in fits of giggles. It took them a while to stop laughing long enough to tell her that she's got green shield stamps stuck all over her nether end.

I still have the espresso coffee cup and saucer set that I bought with green shield stamps. I sometimes wonder if they are worth anything now as I got them in the 70s.

I hated sticking them in too, when I was little I used to lick the back of them ugh the taste,

Back in the days of the CEGB someone sent round a letter to the workers saying that the company was short of money and could they send in their green shield stamps to help. Which lots of people did.
This was back in the days of typewriters and the company found the person who sent it out.

I do! My sister and I used a sponge to wet the sheets.
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I heard that joke too Chewie when it was doing the rounds. The alternative version involved a mum who showered, using a sponge that had glitter on it from the play area with her children the day before and the nurse saw the sparkles winking and said ‘my you have made an effort this morning!’.

The old ones are the best.
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i remember going to green shield house where thy could be redeemed.
anyone remember drinking glasses from filling stations, also i got some little matchbox cars.
pink stamps could never lick the green shield. somehow i associated them with pink paraffin, which we didn't use.
what was the difference from esso blue.
i guess green shield was a bit like argos, having a catalogue, sealed items in boxes, all different kinds of merchandise.
that make me laugh out loud about the adorned nether regions.

Oh yes! The booklets got all fat when they were full of stamps. We used to go Margate to swap ours, our nearest branch. We had quite a few household goods from them.

I’ve forgotten what they were given away with - petrol rings a bell?

I still have my Esso wine glasses and the only champagne flutes I possess are also from Esso. I must have had quite a few tigers in my tank.

There was a classic episode of Heartbeat, where David became obsessed with saving green shield stamps, but I bet there were many like him.
I wonder how many babies slept in cots courtesy of Embassy cigarettes?

I still have some Esso glasses. Does anyone remember the 6 inch tiger tails given in exchange for a certain amount of stamps during “put a tiger in your tank” ad campaign? My Dad was very proud of ours. We tootled along in our first car, a 3 wheeler Reliant, with the tiger tail tied to the aerial

I collected Green Shield stamps, back in the day when I was a young housewife.
I got a wheeled shopping trolley, and it did sterling service through a couple of very bad winters, hauling it through the snow and ice, filled to the brim.

Can still remember collecting several books to get something for the kitchen. I can actually still taste the glue when I think about it. Those stamps were lethal!

I can remember getting some lovely things for our home when we first got married from Green Shield stamps. DH used to smoke then and he smoked Embassy cigarettes. They had coupons in the packets which you could save and exchange for goods. You used to get an Embassy catalogue similar to the Argos catalogue. We had lots of things from there. Thankfully he gave up smoking years ago.

I can remember desperately trying to save enough stamps for another Sindy doll and some clothes for her. I can't remember if I ever got enough or just what we did spend the completed books on , if anything.
My parents didn't smoke, my dad worked at that time within walking distance from home, so the only journeys by car we made were to see my grandparents 15 miles away or our once a year holiday on the East coast - no wonder it took forever!

I still have a few booklets,wish I could find a home for them.

I still use a couple of kitchen things my mother got with hers. I seem to remember blue and pink variants. Am I right? Does anyone remember the difference?

One of my sons used to collect them in his teens and used them to buy a cookery book for me, Bless him, I still use it -
SuperSavers Cookbook.

I used to get mine in Tesco, and tried to shop on Thursdays which was 'double stamp day'.

EightyPercentCocoa
I only vaguely remember pink stamps but you aroused my curiosity and I had a google and found this...

A "Stamp War" broke out in 1963/4. Fine Fare starting giving away the American S & H Pink Stamps. Green Shield Stamps were being given away by Tesco and Priceright and other stamp companies competed aggressively for outlets.

Lord Sainsbury opposed trading stamps. He formed the Distributive Trades Alliance comprising Boots, John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, W H Smith and other leading retailers. This challenge lead to an Act of Parliament to regulate the stamp companies. Fine Fare dropped stamps, but Green Shield Stamps remained popular for many years after this.

My friend went for an internal examination at the docs. Went to the loo beforehand and as there was no loo roll, got a tissue out of her handbag and wiped herself. During the examination, the doc said ‘ well I’ve never seen one of those in there before. A green shield stamp ! Must have got stuck to her tissue. ?‍♀️