The Royal Mail has issued a set of commemorative stamps to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day on 8 May. The ‘Valour and Victory Presentation Pack’ features ten men and women whose courage and determination, in the words of Royal Mail, ‘helped shape the outcome of the second world war’.
Another criteria in selecting the ten was ‘diversity’. One or two curmudgeons on social media have muttered about ‘wokeness’, but that is unjust. For many decades, the valiant contribution of Indians, Nepalese and West Indians to the war effort was overlooked or, worse, airbrushed out of British history books. So well done to the Royal Mail for including in its ten ‘true heroes’ Bhanbhagta Gurung, who was awarded the Victoria Cross serving with the Gurkha Rifles in March 1945; Trinidadian George Arthur Roberts, the first black man to join the London Auxiliary Fire Service in 1938; and fighter pilot Mahinder Singh Pujji, one of the first Indian Sikhs to volunteer for the RAF.
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