I haven't received a letter in years. I once sent a letter to
Bunty, the Enid Blyton-appropriate magazine for little girls who enjoy tales of boarding school girls thwarting crimes. I wrote to its 'Pen-Pal' page.
Unexpectedly, my letter was published, and I had a flurry of paper in reply from all sorts of places that to me seemed to be beyond exotic. I was particularly delighted to receive one on green paper (
Green paper! How
foreign!) from a
Bunty girl in Singapore and I had a pen-pal for a few months after that, I think, until things petered out and we both lost interest in the endeavour.
Pencils, from O-Check, here.
I wonder if little girls still write letters to penpals, or if the very concept is anathema to these new, Internet days when any unknown correspondent is a threat. Benjamin works almost exclusively by email, and can't remember how to lay out a letter. Working in the old-fashioned world of publishing, I send quite a few, but never any away from the office.
In an email, the date is always unforgivingly embedded and it matters not at all where you were when you sent it – you can pick up a reply wherever you are. I haven't received, or sent, a personal letter in years – but I do remember how exciting it is to get one. It made me wonder if simple things, like having your address or general location right-aligned at the top, with the date below, and even the fun of curly flowing cursive, will soon be forgotten.
If anything can encourage me to send a letter, or encourage anyone else whose knowledge of letter and card writing is slowly evaporating, it is having beautiful materials with which to do so.
I imagine letter writing, like blog writing, can have the added benefit of improving writing style. I recently read a fascinating article on the use of cadence in writing, the knowledge of which could do the same, I guess. It is
here.