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There were fewer images in the world when I was a kid. Mostly black and white. Born in the 1950s (just) and with not many books in the house, what general knowledge I now blurt out in front of University Challenge on a Monday evening largely comes from weekly magazines I consumed in the 1960s and 1970s. Tell Me Why and World of Wonder magazines.

They were good wholesome reading for a hungry young mind. No doubt I took on board all the post-colonial prejudices of the time and, looking at those old editions now, I see not only over-simplistic presentations of the world and “exciting new” technologies that are already consigned to the museum, but also I see the glaring blind spots of white middle-class patriarchal England. Typical “Boomer”? I am still learning. But I am still grateful for the introductions to history, art, literature etc.

One feature of those old magazines that I often turned to first was a page featuring half a dozen postage stamps. They could be from any countries at any time. The illustrations were not very good – in the now dated but somehow classic children’s book illustration style of the time – but with a paragraph on each stamp, describing what it was “about”. Each little scene opened up a world of colour, places, animals, people, history, art, politics. I was hooked.