From the Deegam.com website
Douglas Myall
"We are very sad to report
that Douglas Myall passed away on 30 January 2019. He was known
affectionately to his thousands of followers in the philatelic world
simply as Deegam or DGAM.
Born in Essex on 17 December 1922,
Douglas George Albert Myall worked as a British civil servant. His
career took him to the office of the Inspector of Foreign Dividends
where he developed his interest in philately by collecting the stamps
from incoming mail. He subsequently moved to the trademarks registry at
the Patents Office. For some years after retirement, he travelled
extensively acting as a consultant and adviser on trademark and patent
law.
In the 1950s and 1960s, he collected Wilding stamps, the
first definitive issues of HM Queen Elizabeth’s reign. At the same time,
his work required him to study security printing which helped him in
his philatelic activities. His first articles began appearing in the
philatelic press.
From their introduction in 1967, he studied
and collected Machins, the definitive stamps carrying The Queen’s head
designed by Arnold Machin. Soon after Britain adopted decimalised
currency in February 1971, DGAM (with three other eminent philatelists)
founded two Study Circles, the aims of which were to promote the
collection and study of modern philately. The two bodies were the Great
Britain Decimal Stamp Book Study Circle (GB DSB SC) and the British
Decimal Stamps Study Circle (BDSSC). These two later combined to become
the Modern British Philatelic Circle which continues to flourish today
with a membership of over 550 people world-wide.
DGAM was the
founding Editor of GB DSB SC. He devised many of the nomenclatures to
describe the books’ characteristics and these nomenclatures are today’s
accepted international standards.
He was a prolific writer for
the British Philatelic Bulletin and was been voted ‘Favourite Bulletin
author’ in a poll of the readers in most of the years that the polls
were held. He managed to translate his deep knowledge and enthusiasm for
the subject into articles which have a wide topical interest.
As
well as writing for the Circles’ publication and the Philatelic
Bulletin, he wrote and published many articles for a wide variety of
publications including The GB Journal of the Great Britain Philatelic
Society and Stamp Collecting magazine. These complemented his own
personal publications.
During his studies, he was not content
with the way that established catalogues were handling the potential
criteria to study Machin stamps. In the end, he decided to write his own
reference work, with an aspiration to be as exhaustive and precise as
possible.
To many, his greatest achievement has been the writing
and publishing of The Complete Deegam Machin Handbook, which details
all aspects and features of the Machin issues and is universally
accepted as the ‘bible’ on the subject. First published in 1993, a
second and a third edition followed. The latter, in July 2003, contained
1,272 pages. This renowned work received accolades from far and wide.
Amongst the awards given for this work have been the National Postal
Museum medal for research (1997); Gold Medal at ChicagoPex (1997);
Silver Gilt medal, Stampex (1997); Vermeil, Palmerston, New Zealand
(1997); Gold medal, Korpex 2000.
The present electronic edition,
available on CD-ROM only, first arrived on the scene in April 2010. The
files are regularly updated every eight weeks or so. The issued version
is thus always current. Companion Deegam Reports are made available to
subscribers.
Aside from the Machins, Douglas collected British
perfins on covers. Outside of philately, he was interested in
photography and, in particular, the macro photography of insects. Some
of his trips abroad provided some fascinating subjects!
He was
very much a family man and shared most of his adult life with his wife,
Kath, who died in 2014. They had two daughters, Delia and Fiona, and
they and their families were Douglas’s greatest interests. He will be
sorely missed."
oooOooo
"As Douglas wished, the Deegam project will continue."
