News and press releases

Royal Mail has produced a stamp to honour Ellie Simmonds’ gold medal triumph in the Swimming: Women’s 400m Freestyle - S6 final and it will be available in over 500 Post Offices across the country on Monday.

On hearing the news of her 'own stamp' Ellie said: "I'm really excited to be on a stamp. I know my parents will be going to get some as soon as they can. I think it's great that my village  is going to have a golden post box too so everyone can share the moment with me. I can't wait to go home and get a picture with it." 

Royal Mail is delighted to be issuing these very special gold medal stamps to recognise our Paralympic champions. This will be the first time ever that a set of stamps has been issued to celebrate Paralympic gold medallists from the host country.

On 29 August, Royal Mail became the first postal administration whose country is hosting the Games to issue a set of stamps to celebrate the start of the Paralympic Games.

The stamps will be on sale on Monday in over 500 Post Offices across the UK. Residents of Aldridge, Ellie’s hometown, will be able to buy the stamps in the Walsall Wood Post Office at 47 High Street, Walsall Wood WS9 9LR on Monday.

Customers can also purchase the stamps from tomorrow at www.royalmail.com/goldmedalstamps and from Royal Mail’s customer service centre on 08457 641 641 located at Tallents House, 21 South Gyle Crescent, Edinburgh, EH12 PPB.

An additional 4,700 post offices will receive the Gold medal stamps within a week.

Stamp visual of Ellie Simmonds is available from:

Royal Mail Group Press Office

100 Victoria Embankment
LONDON
EC4Y 0HQ
Tel: 020 7250 2468
Email: press.office@royalmail.com

Notes to Editors

• For more information and the full list of the Post Office branches selling 2012 Gold medal stamps visit www.postoffice.co.uk
• To find your nearest branch selling London 2012 gold medal stamps, select the branch finder option. Enter your postcode or town and select “Paralympic Priority Gold Stamps or Paralympic Weekly Gold Stamps” from the service required drop-down menu
• The ParalympicsGB gold medal stamps are presented for purchase as a sheet of two First Class stamps for £1.20. The sheet carries additional information on the winning athlete or athletes. The stamps can also be bought individually at Post Offices for the standard 60p First Class price
• For information on Royal Mail’s range of Olympic and Paralympic stamps visit www.royalmail.com/goldmedalstamps
• For all the latest information on all Royal Mail special stamps launches and news, please follow us on Twitter: @RoyalMailNews and @RoyalMailStamps
• Royal Mail has showcased all the sports disciplines that will be seen in this summer’s Games in three sets of stamps counting down to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games
• At the Beijing 2008 Games ParalympicsGB won 42 gold medals
• Australia Post was the first postal service to issue gold medal stamps to mark home team Olympic victories in 2000, with Hellenic Post in Greece following suit in 2004
• At the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, China Post issued a stamp product to mark each Chinese Gold medal win. This was a sheet of stamps with labels attached and an image of the winning athlete was printed on the labels. This was repeated for all Gold medal wins
• More recently, Canada Post issued a stamp featuring an image of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games gold medal. This was issued to mark the first time a Canadian had won an Olympic gold medal on home territory.