Stamps to honour all 29 British gold medallists (pictured top) at the London 2012 Olympics were made and on sale within 24 hours of their victory, as well as each winner having a postbox painted gold in their home town.

Royal Mail had not planned to do the same for the Paralympics and were instead proposing to feature the Team GB winners on a series of six stamps instead that would not be available until several weeks after the Games finished.

They had claimed that it would be "logistically impossible" to create individual stamps for what could be double the number of Olympic Games gold medallists.

But after a week of public pressure, during which Dame Tessa wrote to the Royal Mail to urge them to change their mind, they have performed a U-turn.

"We believe this is the right thing to do," said the Royal Mail's managing director of stamps, Andrew Hammond.

"Just as our Olympians outperformed expectations, we are confident that our Paralympians will also outperform.

"That would see us issuing many more individual stamps than the 29 printed over the London 2012 Olympics fortnight.

"This is a huge logistical challenge and we will get the gold medal stamps for sale as quickly as possible to a network of Post Office branches around the country and certainly within five working days of a win."

Tessa Jowell (left), pictured here with former Prime Minister Tony Blair (centre) and London 2012 Village Mayor Charles Allen, helped persuade the Royal Mail to change their mind and issue stamps featuring each Paralympic gold medallist from Team GB

Dame Tessa had written to the Moya Greene, the chief executive of the Royal Mail, to protest the decision.

"From the moment that London won the right to host the Olympics and Paralympics in Singapore, we were always determined to ensure that they would be one vision and one Games," wrote Dame Tessa, who had been one of the leading figures in London's successful bid to host 2012. 

"The people of this country have demonstrated their enthusiasm for the Paralympics through record ticket sales and the prospect of the first ever sell-out Games."

She praised the decision to afford gold medal winning Paralympians the same treatment as their Olympic counterparts.

"Royal Mail should be congratulated for making the right decision," said Dame Tessa, who is now the Shadow Olympics Minister.

"The stamps for Team GB's gold medallists have been such an emblematic part of our celebrations during the [Olympic] Games.

"I am delighted that our Paralympic heroes will be given the same honour."

At the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games, ParalympicsGB won 42 gold medals.

This year, in support of ParalympicsGB, Royal Mail donated £200,000 (€254,000/$312,000) to the British Paralympics Association, which will be shared equally among all ParalympicsGB gold medallists.

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