I was intrigued to day to read that Lewis Hamilton’s World Championship victory is to be honoured with a stamp. I’m something of a Formula One fan, and I think Lewis drove fantastically well at such an early age to win the championship. But a stamp? It is not as if he is not well-remunerated as it is. Does he need the publicity? And what happened to the long-standing convention that the only living people commemmorated on stamps are members of the Royal Family.
I have a much better idea, which I confess I have stolen from our Official War Artist in Iraq Steve MacQueen, which would uphold this convention, and commemmorate people who have made the ultimate sacrifice of all. Hundreds have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Can we not portray a few on a Royal Mail set of stamps? Some bereaved families are fully supportive of the idea, and I am sure the Royal Mail would find it the most popular set they have ever issued.
The Art Fund is supporting Steve MacQueen’s Queen & Country campaign, and they have a website and online petition to sign at www.artfund.org/queenandcountry/index.php. At a time when Remembrance Sunday is coming to mean more and more in the national life of the country, even as memories of the Great War dim, I think it would be a poignant reminder of these soldiers’ sacrifice for their faces to be depicted alongside the head of the monarch they served.
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