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Wednesday 23 January 2013

What's in a letter?


Shed in the snow
It's been snowing in Surrey (U.K). There have been photo opportunites and I've been doing a bit of baking. But driving on slippery roads hasn't been much fun and I can't wait for it to melt.

Recently I've been reading letters from the eighteenth century as research for Book 2, 'The Painting', so I thought I'd blog about letter-writing.

The first letters I wrote were to my grandparents as a child.

We moved from Yorkshire to Cambridgeshire when I was fifteen and I exchanged letters with friends I'd left behind. This is when I began to write proper letters; where I included thoughts and feelings as well as news updates. Those letters between good friends were almost diary-like in what they revealed.

Résidence du Rabot in Grenoble
At university and when studying in France and Italy, letters to and from family and friends were pages long and receiving one would brighten my day. When I was living in Grenoble, halfway up a mountain in a Hall of Residence during the winter, my friends and I looked forward to the sound of a letter being slid under our bedroom doors.

I don't write letters anymore. When I send a birthday card to a faraway friend, I scribble a couple of paragraphs of news. Thank you letters usually only say thank you and 'We look forward to seeing you soon' or something along those lines.

Writing letters during my teenage years (and diaries) marked the beginning of being a writer for me. I wonder if the next generation will learn the same skills. Emails are usually shorter, possibly because a quicker exchange takes place. When writing a letter, especially from abroad I knew there'd be no reply for a week or two.

All the letters I've received since the age of fifteen are in A4 envelopes on my bookcase. Occasionally I sit down and read them. They're an insight into my life at the time and they bring it back a little like a photo can, but with more depth. I wish I'd made copies of the letters I wrote, so I could read them with the ones I received. That's one good thing about email.

Do you still write letters?

Rylan reading out Claire from Steps' letter on Celebrity Big Brother

24 comments:

  1. Sadly,not anymore. I used to write letters too as a child.My cousin lived in Belfast and it was the only way of keeping in touch,I also had pen pals in my thirties who lived in New Zealand then it went onto e mailing each other. There was nothing nicer than sitting down and reading a long letter from someone.From a young age I had fancy writing paper and envelopes and I always bought my daughter lovely ones with little pictures on them for her to write thank you letters when recieving a gift. Today's children will never know that wonderful feeling. Love the thought of reading letters from the 18th centuary.
    Oh I've just noticed you've been watching CBB, lol me too!

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    1. Hi Anne, yes I'd forgotten about the writing paper-I wonder how much is sold these days. It's interesting reading letters from the 18th century and I've realised that I'll need to create some letters in my novel-as writing and reading letters was such a huge part of everyday life. I've been glued to CBB unfortunately-will be lost when it finishes!

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  2. I used to love writing letters, probably up until a few years ago. I had a lot of family friends, you know 'aunties', and used to write to them when the children were small, sending photographs and artwork that the boys had drawn. As these old ladies have sadly died, I only have one left who I write to a few times a year, but she sadly doesn't write back, she rings! She says she loves to receive letters but has no news to post in return, so just makes a quick phone call to acknowledge it.
    My mother still writes to a very close old friend of hers, and keeps the letters which I think is lovely.
    I wish I'd have kept more correspondence, makes me sad to think of all those memories lost.
    I would have loved to have seen letters sent between my grandparents during the war...
    Lovely post, Anita. Sadly I hate Big Brother though!!! x

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    1. Hi Donna, thanks so much for visiting and leaving such an interesting comment. Letters from during the war would be fascinating to read. I've read a few journals from WW2 as research for The Grandson and find that time so interesting-especially as our grandparents lived through it. Re Celebrity Big Brother, I've been glued to it-can't help it! I included the link because I thought it showed how important letters from a loved one are to someone.

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  3. Hi Anita. I think that letter writing is a lost art. People probably took more time over it, whereas now we are all in such a hurry a quick email is the way most of us communicate with one another. I would like to rediscover letter writing personally having communicated via letters to an elderly relative of mine in Australia.

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    1. Hi Cathy, thanks for visiting. I think letter-writing may disappear now there is email. Also texting back and forth has become a new way of communicating-especially now that most mobile phones have the text set up in a conversation format. I had a thought whilst writing this post whether there would be any interest amongst writers in a kind of letter-writing group? Would it work?, I don't know.

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    2. Yes quite right about texting too. I'd rather email than text! I'm not sure about your letter writing group Anita. Perhaps something to suggest and see what reaction you get. After all it could only improve your writing (from a practice makes you better perspective). Now I wish I had paid more attention to the letters written in 'Last Letter from your lover' by Jojo Moyes which I have recently read and loved.

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    3. You're right about the letter-writing group-as if I have time for it! Will have to settle for composing eighteenth century letters for my novel...which needs doing far more.

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  4. Absolutely I do, to my father and his wife, to a friend who lives in a Lodge in the Milford Sound - a remote part of New Zealand only accessible by helicopter or a 2 day walk, to my sister who is about to have a baby in Australia, even though she is on email/facebook etc.

    A letter is not the same as an email at all for me and I have been writing letters since I was 9 years old (when I had to spend 3 months living with another family and going to another school while my parents visited Europe), and seriously since I was 13 (when I went to boarding school) and I've never stopped, except that the number of people I write to has of course very much reduced.

    It is amazing and a little sad how quickly it has become old-fashioned, certainly people communicate as much as they ever did if not more, but there is nothing that can compare to the delight one receives when seeing a hand-written letter appear in the letterbox, these letters carry much more of a sense of the person I find than email. But they are not meant for everyone, we choose a few people these days who we share those thoughts with, those who share the love of letter writing and have the patience and inclination to want to do it the old-fashioned way. It's also something we can save to read for the right moment and place, pure delight!

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    1. Hi Claire, thanks for your interesting comment. It is sad how letter-writing has become old fashioned. I thought the other day, if I did want to write a letter to anyone apart from family or someone living abroad-it might seem a little outdated and strange; and if that person doesn't write letters, I wouldn't get a reply anyway. Whereas twenty years ago at university, it was perfectly normal to communicate with friends by letter. Receiving a letter, especially one written in fountain pen is special.

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  5. Oh and I had my 11-year-old daughter writing thank you cards after her birthday late November, which everyone loved receiving and she had fun creating, each of them illustrated by her as well as the note. We took the cards with us to a cafe and did them while enjoying ourselves outside the house, so it didn't seem like a chore, more like a bit of fun!

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    1. Oh yes, thank you cards! We've just finished the ones from Christmas.

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  6. Hi Anita, It's really exciting to get an envelope with handwriting on the front and find a leter inside. On the other hand, if people will only communicate electronically, then it's good to get personal e-mails. They have been a great source of how people lived and thought over many centuries. Anne Stenhouse

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    1. Hi Anne, thanks for visiting my blog and for your comment. There are so many books in the library with copies of letters in-want to read them all!

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  7. Loved your post, Anita, and reading the comments here too. I hardly ever write letters any more, but when I was a teenager, I and my cousin exchanged our innermost thoughts on pretty, colourful paper that could be bought, loose, by weight, at that time and felt special. Having to wait a while for the next instalment of news made finally getting the latest details all the more exciting! I used to get very funny letters from my parents when I was at university, too - and my mum sometimes added humous drawings - not so easy via email. I've kept them, and they still make me laugh.

    Having said all that, I do still send newsy emails regularly. Maybe not so much of the 'innermost thoughts' stuff these days - but I think that might be because I'm not a teenager any more! C x

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    1. Thanks Clare. I've enjoyed reading the comments. Yes, maybe innermost thoughts are more for the teenage years. In the letters I've been reading from the late 1700s, a middle-aged woman refers to the importance of including thoughts in a letter. But maybe that's because letters were such a huge part of her and her acquaintances' lives. There was no TV to entertain in the evening and no telephones or computers.

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  8. I don't write letters like I used to but I do have friends who I exchange emails with and, like you say, I have my responses to them. I keep these emails in a seperate folder on the email account and only hope that the account never gets destroyed in some way.

    Many years ago my daughter spent six months in Israel. I still have the blue airmail letters that she sent to me and it felt good to be in touch but recently my friend's daughter went to South America for six months and she emailed and skyped whenever she could. I would have loved that. I missed her very much and the additional contact would have been priceless.

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    1. Hi Rosalind, I always intend to print off special emails, but never get round to it. It's a bit like printing digital photos-must get round to that too!
      It would have been great to email my family and skype when I lived abroad and I'm sure my mother would have loved that. She used to send me one letter every week from the time I left home. I treasure those letters now that she's passed away and they're something I can always keep and show my children one day.

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  9. My mother has lived in South Africa since I was a teenager so I always wrote letters to her and occasionally still do. I love writing and receiving hand-written letters and should actually write more.

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    1. Hi Debs, thanks for your commment. I should write more letters too-hope they don't become a thing of the past.

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  10. Hi Anita
    I haven't written a letter for ages. My best friend and I used to write to each other a lot when she moved away and I still have all her letters in the attic - I might go and dig them out again soon! I still prefer to send thank you cards by post rather than text or email though. Elle xx

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    1. Hi Elle, thanks for your comment. Letters are so lovely to keep. I still send thank you cards too.x

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  11. I think reading a letter is much nicer than opening an email, but I'm just as guilty of sending a convenient email as anyone else! But I do write letters to my grandparents, as we live 300 miles apart and I don't see them very often.

    I bet the letters you're reading for research are fascinating. I love reading old letters -- there are few better insights into life at the time they were written. But I'm a history geek so I would say that! :-D

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    1. Hi Stacey, thanks for your comment. I've been enjoying the eighteenth century letters. Last night I read one about a journey on a stagecoach and the writer described each of the passengers in great detail and the conversations they had. I expect reading and writing letters was a way to pass the long winter evenings in those days.

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