Adventures in Letter Writing No. 1: Big Mistake?

So I don’t know if this is going to work really but if you’re passionate about keeping handwritten letters alive you may have just dipped into here to try to fathom out where on earth this (most likely) dinosaur is coming from.  I probably just wish a few of the people I know would drop me a line every now and then.  I do love technology but it’s never as personal and who prints off emails (um, well me sometimes). When a proper letter comes through the post it’s almost like winning the lottery these days, and then I started to think if I feel like that maybe others do too.  Handwritten letters are really the best aren’t they?  Actually that’s not entirely true because I had a lovely letter from Paul Mayhew-Archer who co-wrote The Vicar of Dibley with Richard Curtis (sorry this wasn’t meant to be name dropping), but he sadly has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s so had to type it, and that was just as special.  Perhaps it was that it was personal and to be fair he had handwritten parts of it.  But the point is most of us can write a letter and our handwriting is just so personal to us.

Dad’s handwriting

In my 20s I asked all my family to write to me because I was fascinated to see all their different styles (not in a psychoanalysis or graphology way) just in a “Well, what does Grandad’s handwriting look like, or Uncle Don, or even my Dad’s for that matter”.  It feels like real treasure to have that single letter from my Grandad. My Gran always wrote the cards and letters to us until that day. And the funny one from my Dad on a flipchart size piece of paper because I insisted I wanted a “big” letter from him.  I’ve got them all safe.  For my life-time anyway. Not sure what the kids will do with them all after I’m gone but at least they will know that we could write and there was still a postal service and possibly even a record of some of the stuff (not necessarily interesting) we got up to at the turn of the 21st Century. 

Grandad’s handwriting

So I guess that’s my hope for my little letter writing venture. To keep handwritten letters a thing of now rather than just of the past.  We’ll have to see where it takes us.
 
Dinah

2 thoughts on “Adventures in Letter Writing No. 1: Big Mistake?

  1. Melanie Evans says:

    Hello Dinah. We need an app that “types” in the form of our handwriting so even our typed documents can be handwritten. There’s probably already something like that. I just became aware of your blog through the Anchored Scraps blog. I look forward to catching up on your posts and exploring your blog. There are many of us who enjoy writing and receiving snail mail. It’s NOT a dying art!! Haha.

  2. Zarahi says:

    I am a Middle School teacher in Portland Or. Have loved letter writing since I understood what a letter us. Over time, my letter writing has diminished. I thought I’d revive it and not only that, but encourage my students to write as well. I have been reading your blog, looking for lesson inspiration. Thanks for doing this. It is nice to know “I am not alone” in the conviction about letter writing as something important that must be kept alive.

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