Guernsey Post announces the release of a set of stamps next month, which depict the Channel Island Archipelago Sheet of Alderney & Burhou, created by gifted architect Addison “Roger” Warren, 1st edition, 60 years after it was first published.
Roger, as he was known among family and friends, arrived on Alderney in the Bailiwick of Guernsey in 1956, where his talent and foresight would see him help to influence the shape and character of the island that would be his home for the next 41 years.
During the Second World War Roger enlisted in the Royal Engineers where he was engaged in drawing maps from aerial photographs taken by the Royal Air Force. Many of its missions flew over occupied Alderney in order to gather military intelligence as to the extent of German forces and fortifications.
On 6th June, 1944, when thousands of Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, just 10 miles from Alderney, in the D-Day Landings, Roger’s maps provided invaluable intelligence. Roger, who at the time was based at Government Communication Headquarters – GCHQ – in Cheltenham, was one of the few people who knew of the impending landings.
Following the war, before Roger and his family moved to Alderney, he painstakingly compiled and personalised his map of Alderney and Burhou, which took him some 3,000 hours to complete.
The six stamps depict Roger’s drawings of the islands of Alderney and Burhou; Alderney’s 3,000 ft. breakwater; its aerodrome; the picturesque town of St. Anne; and, Fort Houmet Herbe (or “grassy islet”), which is located on a tiny island reached by a causeway at low tide.
After Roger was demobbed, he worked for Air-Rad and continued to do so during his early years in Alderney, his work being flown in and out of the island. In 1973 he joined the States of Alderney as a building inspector, a position he held for 12 years until his retirement.
Bridget Yabsley, head of philatelic at Guernsey Post said: - “We’re really delighted to be able to publish Roger’s map work 60 years after its first publication and his legacy certainly lives on: From the nurse’s home at Crabby Bay and the Sydney Herival Wing at the Jubilee Home, to the designs used by almost every young family building their homes in the late fifties to the mid eighties, when Roger retired.
“We are very grateful to Mrs. Margaret Warren-Roberts (née Warren), one of Roger’s two daughters, who lives in Alderney, for providing us with a wealth of information for our stamp issue, which is to be released on 1 February, Roger’s birth date,” Bridget added.