HOW nice it is to hear that the presence of the Queen’s head on British postage stamps has been assured ahead of impending postal privatisation.

British stamps are the only ones in the world that do not carry the country’s name – just the portrait of the sovereign.

However, with the proliferation of franking machines and other means of prepaying postage, Sir Rowland Hill’s “bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp, and covered at the back with a glutinous wash” may soon be in terminal decline.

I believe that Parliament should mandate the imprinting of the royal effigy on these alternative forms of payment in order to ensure that every knock of the postman continues to remind us of our ruler.

John Eoin Douglas, Edinburgh