Wait, you say, it's still April! True, but the first May slogans will be in use very early, in fact the British Heart Foundation default slogan will have three phases by my calculation.
As it is currently in use the standard BHF slogan will start the month. But with local elections long-planned for Scotland and Wales we can expect slogans encouraging the early sending of Postal Votes for the Scottish Parliament and Senned. No slogans are planned for the on-off-on_again English local authority elections but that doesn't mean that residents of England will miss out.
IMP and iLSM explained.
IMP stands for Integrated Mail Processors and iLSM for Intelligent Letter Sorting Machines. (You can see a brief video - and discussion about - the iLSM here.)
Although the iLSMs are 'intelligent', it is the IMPs which have the facility to determine (more or less) whether a particular slogan is applied, based on the destination address. If a letter from Yorkshire is going to Wales it should get the Post Early slogan for the Senned elections. If the letter is going to Scotland it should get the slogan for the elections to the Scottish Parliament. Anywhere else and it should get the standard (in this case) BHF slogan.
However, all Scotland's mail centres are, ironically, equipped with iLSMs which means that if the Post Early slogan is invoked it is applied to ALL mail, including that to Wales, England, Northern Ireland, and internationally.
Wales' mail centres only have IMPs so they should apply the 'appropriate' slogans.
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| 2024 General Election voting publicity images |
UPDATE 7 May. JM has sent these black & white images from a third party showing the Manchester and S W Wales (Swansea) both dated 05/05/2026:
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| Post Early to Vote Early S W Wales and Manchester Mail Centres 05/05/2026 |
UPDATE 12 May. Thanks again to JM for a Manchester pair of slogans on IMP 134 (on last line of the block) showing the switching and the selection of the Post early to Vote Early slogan for the Welsh, Swansea SA2, address after using the default BHF slogan for the English, Stockport SK7, address in the same batch within 6 seconds of each other (20.44.10 and 20.44.16).
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| Two slogans from Manchester Mail Centre six seconds apart; one to a Welsh address and one sent locally so using the Post Early and BHF slogans 05/05/20026. |
After the elections are over we will probably see a Mental Health Awareness Week slogan, but the BHF may fall in between, and afterwards. (But who knows what will happen in Sheffield?)
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| Last year's Mental Health slogan. |
UPDATE 12 May: Thanks to LT for the first report of the Mental Health slogan this year, from North & West Yorkshire.
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| Mental Health Awareness Week slogan North & West Yorkshire mail centre 11/05/2026 |
I'll be out of the country from mid-May to mid-June so I shan't be able to add any images but do keep sending them.
OTHER POSTMARKS AND POSTAL MARKINGS
SS has sent us another copy of a branch datestamp, the Wokingham (Surrey) SID dates 28 AP 2026
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| Wokingham Y self-inking-datestamp 28 April 2026 |
UPDATE 12 May. JW has sent a couple of images this month. The first is of the counter datestamp of Boswell Drive, Edinburgh. This is unusual as it is about the same size as others but doesn't have the Morse code border. This was used on 15 April 2026.
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| Boswell Drive Post Office rubber datestamp 25 APR 2026 |
The second item is a fragment of a package sent with a 1st class stamp on. I don't know whether the endorsement '2nd class Large Letter' was added before it was sent, but it was referred to Revenue Protection - presumably because it was too large for a basic letter.
Just a reminder, a 2nd class Large Letter costs £1.55 but a basic (small) Letter costs £1.80. So there is no real loss in using an older 1st class stamp for the 2nd class Large service. (We forecast that this would happen and that Revenue Protection would probably be involved.) This receives the Birmingham datestamp and a boxed
Revenue Protected
Treat as 2nd Class
handstamp.
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| Revenue Protected Treat as 2nd Class applied at Birmingham Mail Centre May 2026(?). |
Remember, slogan postmarks appearing in May will be added to this post (although some won't be added until mid-June), so check here before you spend time scanning and emailing.
A reminder of what these monthly listings are for.
For each month I record the different slogans in use, plus the default slogan that is used when there is nothing else.
For each of these I try to record only one of each of the basic two types, plus any that are reversed on square envelopes, which normally only gives three or four.
Occasionally a slogan appears with different line spacing in the same format.
I do not record multiple versions of the same as any of these unless I later get a much better example of one that I showed purely for the record, but which is otherwise not very clear.
The only exception to this, which doesn't seem to happen much these days, is when a slogan is used well out of time.
I mention this only to avoid readers unnecessarily duplicating what has already been provided.
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