Letters - They Can Be a Lifesaver

Much as I love technology, and spend a big chunk of every day with eyes on a screen, fingers flying across a keyboard, sending the next text, email, tweet or WhatsApp message, I'm still sad at the demise of the personal letter.  There's nothing to beat the sound of a big, fat envelope landing on the doormat, the first sight of the handwritten address and the excitement of freeing the folded paper inside.

When I was about eleven or twelve, we were all asked, during a particularly boring French lesson, whether we would like a penfriend.  Most of the boys declined, grinning and shaking their heads, but several girls, including me, accepted the offer.  And so for the next few months Sabine and I corresponded sporadically, telling each other in broken French and pigeon English about our families and our hobbies.  As far as I remember it never got any more interesting than that.  Little did I think that one of Sabine’s letters would end up contributing to my sex education.

It happened like this (and I still cringe, fifty years later, when I recall the incident):  It was another boring French lesson.  We were learning about past participles, and as the teacher turned to write on the blackboard I quietly reached into my bag and drew out the letter from Sabine that had arrived that morning.  Holding it beneath the desk, I began to read it when Miss Hyde’s voice rang out from the front of the class, “Jill Carrington, what have you got there?  This is a French lessson!” she bellowed.  There might even have been a piece of flying chalk aimed at my head, which was an accepted short, sharp shock in those days.  “It’s a letter,” I stammered.  Miss Hyde shook her head in despair.  “That’s nothing to do with this lesson,” she said, holding out a hand for the offending article.  Indignantly and with some bravado, I said loudly, “It’s a FRENCH letter.” 

I wasn’t prepared for the roar of laughter from a group of boys on the cusp of puberty, looking for sexual connotation in any comment.  I was confused.  I didn’t understand why it was so funny.  Miss Hyde glared at the boys, snatched the letter and moved on swiftly.  It was only at playtime when my best friend explained to me the meaning of ‘French letter’ that the full humiliation hit me.  I don’t remember if I replied to Sabine but I do know that particular pen friendship didn’t last long after that.

Just a few of the letters I've kept over the years

Every parent has probably got a box or a drawer crammed with sweet notes from their children.  I’m no exception.  The wonky writing, the misspellings, the innocent sentiments, ‘I love you mumy I am sory I didunt meen to eat that biskit….’  Those days are now so distant, we will never get them back, but it’s a touching reminder that our children really were once cute. The missives from the children and grandchildren are probably the only love letters I've ever received.  When the future husband and I were separated for a summer at the beginning of our relationship we did keep up a fairly frequent correspondence, although his letters were filled mainly with rundowns of the latest football match, and the most romantic phrase after his signature was always a jaunty 'Up the Rovers.'  I would have been flattered, thinking it was some sort of secret message just for me, but I’ve seen it on all letters and emails since, including those to every North West NASUWT member when the husband was local secretary.  I’m not sure how many Burnley supporters subsequently defected to the NUT.

Letters have always held a special place in my heart.  My mum and dad are of a generation that thought nothing of penning several letters a week.  Between ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels I went to work in France for a few months.  This was the first time I’d been away from home for longer than a week and I was terribly homesick.  My days revolved around the postman’s regular visits – and those thin blue airmail envelopes with my mum’s inimitable handwriting on the front.  In the privacy of my room I would read, through hot, fat tears, the descriptions of the mundane family life I was missing so much.  ‘I took John to the barber’s, he cut it a bit short…… Dad and I went into Palmers Green, had a coffee and a Danish pastry in the Baker’s Oven…….Grandma and granddad called round and we walked over to Broomfield Park….we sat by the bandstand and had an ice cream…..’  For a few moments I was back with my family, amidst the arguments and laughter and the everyday.  I still have a wooden box in the attic containing a neat pile of thin blue envelopes with my mum’s handwriting on the front.  They sit alongside my eldest son's 'blueys from when he was posted to Afghanistan with the RAF.  I didn't care what they said, I just cared that he was still alive to send them.

My dad’s letters have always had a more philosophical slant.  No descriptions of haircuts or visits to the park, these are letters full of advice, sympathy, condolences, usually after an upsetting split with a boyfriend, problems with bringing up three young children (‘they’ll grow up..’) and once, notably, when I was going through a particularly distressing depression and could see no light at the end of the tunnel ('..hang on in there, it WILL get better.' It did).  That letter, written from the heart by a fellow sufferer, is in a drawer next to my bed, crumpled, creased and smudged with tears.  It’s almost too painful to read now that I've come out the other side.

My grandma and granddad were married for nearly fifty years.  They obviously loved each other to have stayed together so long, but I never saw any obvious signs of affection.  My granddad was the stereotypical henpecked husband, with grandma nagging him most of the time.  So it was a surprise when the house was cleared after their deaths and a large pile of love letters was found, mainly scribbled on the backs of old envelopes or beneath shopping lists.  The notes, mainly from granddad to grandma, and only occasionally reciprocated, were touching in their simplicity.  Fifty years of reassuring grandma that despite her damaged childhood and its repercussions for the rest of her life, she really was lovable and loved.

I'm hoping that when our house is eventually cleared after the husband and I have passed away the children will find our letters and shed a tear at that romantic phrase at the end of each letter, 'Love Dave, Up the Rovers.' 


A short haiku this week, which I hope conveys the feeling of receiving a personal letter.

The Letter by Jill Reidy

The thud on the mat

Eyes note script, envelope rips 

Anticipation


Thanks for reading        Jill

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Stationery - the written word.

I wonder... will there still be paper and pens when my Grand-daughter reaches my age? Will people even remember how to hand write a letter?

I remember my father's desk: It is one of my clearest childhood memories. I was six years old when we moved into The Everest Hotel in Maghull. It was a brand new pub, built in the middle of a rural village between Preston and Liverpool, dedicated to first ascent of the mountain by Hilary, Hunt and sherpa Tensing. The walls were decorated with climbing gear and photos.  I realise now that it was an early example of what we now call 'themed pubs'. My father's office, like all the rooms in the flat that we inhabited above the public bars, was behind one of eight doors that opened onto one side of a long corridor that stretched the full length of the angular building. There was only one door on the other side, leading to a sunny flat roof at the rear. 

Inside Dad's office stood dark grey, dexion shelving, stacked with cartons of cigarettes, roll towels for dispensers and other sundry items. Ascent of the shelving lead through a loft hatch into another world of high roofed loft space divided into separate rooms, bigger than the bedrooms below. In one section was a large flat boarded area surrounding a large, cold water tank. here my brothers set up their Hornby train set and their Scalextric track.  The first time I ventured up, I discovered a large room, with another boarded area and once I had negotiated the beams, separated with insulation, I discovered a large brown trunk, filled with all my sister's ballet costumes,

While my brother's played, I dressed up, alone and happy in my own imagination, dancing. Sometimes they would turn off the lights and close the loft hatch , climbing down the shelving and leave me, without realising that I was there. Any way ... where was I ? Oh yes, my father's desk. It was a compendium of fascinating objects for a small girl and the brand new polished wooden furniture had sliding drawers, unlike my school desk with lifting lid.

The drawers were filled with headed notepaper, envelopes, pens, and paper clips.  On the top was a large blotter, bottles of back and blue ink, a stapler, the telephone and a small sponge in a case.  dad would dampen the sponge to seal envelopes and glue stamps to letters. I recall that he also dampened the tips of fingers when counting money.  The fountain pens sucked up the ink but splattered and blobbed in my inexperienced hands. The black ink bottle was particularly intriguing, being tall and flat on both sides, with a ridged neck.  The label bore the words 'indelible black ink', a  phrase that at that time was just beyond my comprehension.

One day, while my father was busy in the bar, I found myself at his desk, playing. The black ink bottle tempted me and I nonchalantly opened the bottle and slowly dripped a few droops onto the sponge pad, watching them disappear. Suddenly, I was disturbed by my mother, calling from the kitchen and left, fully intending to return and rinse out the sponge. To my regret - I forgot.

Over the next few days, the family were engaged in choosing wallpaper for bedrooms while the decorator was busy in the lounge. On completion his next task was to paint my father's office and as a consequence, my his paperwork moved temporarily to the dining room table.  One evening, I was sitting there doing sums, ( my eldest brother used to set me maths homework).  My youngest brother was watching TV, distracting and teasing me. In a moment of sheer frustration, I picked up the sponge and launched it towards him.

Suddenly, it was like a scene from One Hundred and One Dalmatians, as huge black spots began to spread out onto the newly painted white walls. The brand new, very chic, 1960's,  brilliant orange, standard lampshade behind me was splatted with two huge spots. We looked at each other in disbelief. We were sunk!

Ten minutes later, having realised that the decorator was still upstairs in the flat, we managed to get him to repaint the walls. We blotted the lampshade but couldn't remove the ink, so we took a risk and turned it round so that the stain was on the side facing the wall. Neither of us spoke of it again. We didn't tell. Goodness knows what Mum and dad thought when they finally saw the ink stains.

In 1974, I went with my parents on a short cruise round the Mediterranean. Sailing into Lisbon, a number of Portuguese families came aboard for the trip across to Tangier, celebrating Mardi Gras.   Among them was a very handsome young man called Rui Ventura., who decided that I was the one for him.  He wrote too me many times after our return home, inviting me to stay with his family in Estoril. My father refused to allow me to go. I still have the letters in a leather case and re-read them occasionally.

Love Letters

You sent me love letters,
Letters from Estoril,
Letters of love, teenage love,
Letters that I keep still.

Your letters are my treasures,
Your letters warmed my heart,
Your letters penned in your own hand,
A lovely, dying art,

You were the boy on holiday,
You were so handsome then,
You promised to love me forever,
I never saw you again.

I still keep your letters,
I keep them deep in a drawer,
I take them out and read them again,
And I am young once more.


Thank you for reading.  Adele    

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