A Writer New to Blogging

Letters.

Every morning I check my computer for e-mails and usually I have some; often written only a few minutes earlier so that I can visualise where my friends are and what they’re doing.  But the messages themselves have such an impersonal look about them – they’re typed in a plain font with black ink and long straight lines that stretch across the screen.  Often the messages are so brief that they remind me of the telegrams that used to come in those dreaded yellow envelopes and were usually the bearers of bad news.

And then I think of how the post used to be delivered by a man in a smart uniform, who carried a heavy red bag and seemed to be permanently cheerful.  He recognised the people on his round and even called “Happy Birthday” as he brought an obvious collection of cards to the house.

And what a pleasure it was to pick up the letters from the doormat and instantly recognise the hand-writing or that particular brown ink that could only be from a favourite Aunt; or the foreign stamps – the French ones on flimsy envelopes that had come by air-mail to bring news of my Pen Friend in her lovely flat in Versailles and who’d been writing to me since we were schoolgirls.  Or the envelopes from Singapore and Amsterdam where my two brothers-in-law lived and worked.

Then I think of the copperplate writing of my mother’s sister in the same town – no easy telephone connection then, hence the letter posted in a box near her own home.

Later there was an envelope with a typed address and a long typed letter from a Welsh friend who sneaked time in her busy day as a Secretary.

There were bills as well, in boring brown envelopes with a frank mark instead of a stamp and there were lively picture postcards, from friends who were on holiday.

Of course letters could be saved; tied up in bundles with red ribbon if they were very special or stuffed into bags if more mundane.  All to be read and re-read years later, creating a very personal living history.

But still my e-mails are welcome, even if they do lack the romance of the hand-written letters.  They are quick and convenient in a world that has speeded up and changed beyond recognition.

I’ll just check if I have another!!