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For Windrush Day (22 June), Royal Mail issued eight stamps: two 1st class, two at £1.00, two £2.00 and two £2.20. The “vibrant illustrations” are by Black British artists Bokiba, Kareen Cox, Tomekah George, Alvin Kofi and Emma Prempeh. They depict the arrivals at Tilbury, a Saturday school, a protest march, a Caribbean food stall and a man and a woman outside a house. The quality is uneven, and perhaps the most successful designs, because of their colour and sense of movement, are ‘Carnival Come Thru’ (costumed steelpan players) and ‘Here We Come’ (cricket), both by Bokiba, and Kofi’s assured ‘Dancehall Rhythms’ (dancers at a sound system).
Royal Mail says the stamps “capture the ways in which Caribbean culture has been woven into the fabric of our nation”.
The presentation pack, priced at £13.50, contains a booklet written by Colin and Sonia Grant which includes (properly credited) images of a rally in Trinidad, the classic stern view of the Windrush, new arrivals getting off the train at Waterloo, masqueraders at Leeds West Indian Carnival, speaker stacks, stalls in Brixton Market, Sam King, a BOAC airliner and a march against an immigration colour bar.
The pack is among several options Royal Mail is offering the Windrush souvenir-hunter, from a set of postcards of the stamp designs (£3.60) to a full sheet of stamps costing £132.
Royal Mail has said that these collectables celebrate the contributions made by those who left the Caribbean 50+ years ago and enriched British life and culture. It is ironic, then, that not so long ago these same people from the Windrush Generation were threatened with deportation under the Home Office’s cruel and ill-conceived ‘hostile environment’ policy. Many victims of the Windrush Scandal are still fighting for some kind of justice, compensation or closure.
Stamps can be purchased from the Royal Mail website.
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