Farrokh, Freddie and Postage Stamps

Farrokh Bulsara inherited his love of stamps from his father, Bomi, an employee of the British Colonial Office in Zanzibar, in what is now Tanzania. Freddie began building his own stamp collection at around the age of nine and continued until he was twelve. His album mainly contained stamps from Great Britain and other parts of the British Empire and Commonwealth, including Zanzibar, India, Australia and New Zealand, as well as Monaco and Hungary.

Over time, the collection grew into an album of 54 black pages. Freddie did not simply arrange his stamps in chronological or geographical order. He placed them on the dark pages with colour, shape and composition in mind. The stamps formed symmetrical patterns, with empty space deliberately left between them. On one page, he even arranged the stamps into the shape of the letter F.

Bomi Bulsara and his wife Jer came from India and belonged to the Parsi community, followers of Zoroastrianism who preserved their religious and cultural traditions after their ancestors migrated from Iran to India.

Their son Farrokh was born in Zanzibar on 5 September 1946. His early childhood, however, was spent not in Africa but in his family's ancestral homeland of India. He first lived there with his extended family and later attended St Peter's, a British-style boarding school in Panchgani. It was there that he formed his first band, The Hectics, playing the piano, and where his classmates began calling Farrokh by the more English-sounding name Freddie.

In 1964, a revolution took place in Zanzibar. Following the overthrow of the Sultanate and the persecution that accompanied the political upheaval, the Bulsara family left the island and moved to England. As British subjects from birth, they were entitled to settle there.

Farrokh joined his parents in Feltham, near London, finished school and later enrolled at art college. He studied graphic design while continuing to pursue music.

In the late 1960s, he met Brian May and Roger Taylor, who were then playing in a band called Smile. He suggested a new name for the group: Queen. Farrokh Bulsara himself eventually became Freddie Mercury.

Freddie Mercury died on 24 November 1991, aged 45, from complications of AIDS, one day after publicly disclosing his diagnosis. At the time, antiretroviral therapy capable of effectively controlling the progression of HIV infection was not yet available.

After his death, much of his personal property was destroyed by his family in accordance with Zoroastrian traditions, but his stamp album was preserved. Bomi Bulsara kept the collection and, in 1993, put it up for auction at Sotheby's alongside his own philatelic material.

Freddie Mercury's album was acquired by the British National Postal Museum, now The Postal Museum. The proceeds from its sale were donated to the Mercury Phoenix Trust, a charity established by Mercury's friends and fellow members of Queen to support the fight against HIV/AIDS. In 2022, Mercury's album was displayed to the public for the first time as a museum exhibit in its own right.

Mercury's will also reflected his affection for those closest to him — both human and feline. He was famously fond of cats and had several throughout his life, making provisions for their care. A significant part of his estate, including his London home, Garden Lodge, was left to Mary Austin, his former fiancée and lifelong close friend.

Eight years after his death, Freddie Mercury appeared on a British postage stamp.

On 1 June 1999, Royal Mail issued the Millennium stamp series, celebrating important figures and achievements in British culture. The Entertainers' Tale set included a 19p stamp titled Mercury's Magic, featuring a photograph of Freddie Mercury performing on stage.

The stamp was designed by Peter Blake, the artist also known for his work on the cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The issue caused a minor controversy. At the time, Royal Mail followed a rule under which living people, other than members of the Royal Family, were generally not permitted to appear on British stamps. Yet in the background of the Mercury stamp, behind the drums, Roger Taylor — Queen's very much alive drummer — can clearly be seen. 

Royal Mail decided that the musician's small background appearance did not violate the rule. Roger Taylor thus entered the history of British philately almost by accident. In 2020, Royal Mail released another stamp series celebrating Queen, featuring iconic album covers and photographs from the band's live performances. 

Freddie Mercury collected stamps for only a few years as a child. His collection was neither particularly valuable nor especially rare. Its significance today lies in the album itself: 54 black pages on which nine-to-twelve-year-old Farrokh Bulsara arranged small coloured rectangles, thinking not only about countries and denominations but also about shape, colour and composition.

A few decades later, he became one of the people whose faces appear on postage stamps.

On 5 September 2026, Freddie Mercury would have turned 80. Let us remember this talented, colourful and unforgettable lover of cats and stamps.