The Shortest Stories and the 2001 Welsh postage stamps
 

In 2001 a set of Welsh postage stamps was issued to celebrate 127th anniversary of Caru’s birth. They show some of the unusual wild plants that featured in “17 Shortest Stories”, first published in 1973. These stories were published without titles, as per the author’s wishes, and originally even without page breaks. They were shortened versions of existing stories, written in the 1950’s, hence the ‘Shortest Stories’ title. This editing was done by Caru himself shortly before his death. Below are links to the four stories featured and images of the stamps. Though they were without titles it was necessary to create some for this site, and consequently the stories are named after the wild flowers featured in the stories.



It was quite appropriate to honour Caru one a special stamp issue. He was a keen, albeit idiosyncratic stamp collector. He asked the people in his home village for any stamps they had on their letters and parcels, and would intercept Merfyn Post on his rounds to look at the deliveries to make sure he got any that weren’t in his collection. Most collectors place the stamps in an album by country, but Caru preferred to classify them by colour. He did not limit himself to postage stamps either. His albums also include merchants trading stamps, the dividend stamps off Brooke Bond tea packets and anything resembling a stamp. The Foundation holds all of Caru’s albums apart from the Turquoise Album, the whereabouts of which is unknown.