The lost art of letter writing

World Letter Writing Day takes place on the 1st September every year. This fact would have passed me by if someone from the Suffolk Writers Group on Facebook hadn’t used it for our daily challenge. I have never had a personal letter from someone under the age of forty.

I hardly ever write personal letters myself either, preferring to tap out thoughtless texts and emails, hurried WhatsApp messages, and social media posts edited for general consumption. If I do take pen to paper, it is to reply to those rare friends who bother to do so for me, people who as far as I know don’t have any social media account. I cherish their carefully handwritten, personal messages, put them aside in their original envelopes to be re-read when I am feeling downhearted, and show my appreciation by replying as soon as I can, probably with a lot less thought than they have devoted to me.

Letters are always out of date, reflecting the mood of the writer at the time of writing, but so are texts and emails if I fail to read them straight away. My own letters are not an easy read because they include crossings out and arrows pointing in all sorts of directions to additions – a bit like the first draft of any of my writings before I power up my word processor. There is something lovely and revealing about handwriting and the level of neatness; the balance of excitement and care.  And those friends who have sent a letter have taken the trouble to address an envelope, go to a post box, and spend money to post it to me.

What a joy, therefore, to receive through the post a mystery black and white envelope with handwriting I didn’t recognise, and to find I had been contacted by two sisters that I used to play with as a child, neither of whom I had seen for almost fifty years, telling me how much they enjoyed “Ill Conceived.”  They couldn’t have chosen a better method.