Sir Winston Churchill is given a first class commemoration on the new series of WWII stamps. The collection comes 70 years after the day – 13 May 1940 – the new Prime Minister famously said: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."
Royal Mail said the Britain Alone collection, which consists of eight special stamps, pays tribute to the wartime generation who resolved to "do their bit"for the war effort and "dare and endure" on the Home Front.
It celebrates groups like the Home Guard – otherwise known as Local Defence Volunteers or Dad’s Army – which acted as a second defence force in Britain, guarding coastal areas and other important places such as airfields.
The 80,000 strong Women’s Land Army – which carried out manual labour jobs such as milking cows, digging ditches and harvesting crops to help alleviate food shortages – also appears on a special first class stamp.
Julietta Edgar, head of special stamps at Royal Mail, said she hoped the collection would act as a "poignant reminder" of the "huge contribution" the country had made to the war effort during some of its darkest days.
She said: "Across the country, daily life was changed forever as new civil defence organisations were formed and nearly three million people were relocated from big cities to the relative safety of the countryside."
A Royal broadcast by the then Princess Elizabeth and her younger sister Princess Margaret also gets the stamp of approval in the new collection, which will go on sale for a year.
The less familiar faces of three young siblings being evacuated from London to Northampton – taken in 1941 – is also featured on a 60p stamp. Royal Mail recreated the scene for the new collection’s launch.
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