The Mail Menopause

The recent postal strikes have given rise to some particularly bitter verbal wrangling between strikers, union officials and Royal Mail managers in the media. By way of some respite from this, the Today Programme this morning featured a specialist "postal economist" who was convinced that once people are exposed to e-mail they no longer want to write letters, and thus the postal service needs to adapt rapidly to a completely new market or it will be doomed. He's probably right, but I am a sad, anachronistic fool and I like to write and receive proper letters. Electronic mail is a quick, simple and cheap way of keeping in touch. I use it as frequently as anybody else does today, but somehow it doesn't match the romance of pen and paper.

I love the mechanics of writing. I own proper writing paper, envelopes, stamps and a fountain pen. I bought an extension cable for my computer keyboard so I can lift it off my desk and set it aside, enabling me to actually write, not just type. Each Christmas my cards are always sent at the last minute because I try and write notes to my relatives and tell them what's going on in my life. I detest those awful "round robin" printed, generic news sheets that some people send out, detailing their achievements in the past year and how great their life is - I try and inject a little humour and not brag about anything good that happens (mainly because I have little to brag about, but there you go). I don't come from a close family and letters are an easy way to reach out to all the folks I don't see. When I do see them, the letters mean we have some connection and we have something to talk about. Elderly relatives like them especially. When my uncle was ill, he mentioned how much he liked my Christmas letters, so I made a point of writing to him regularly until he died. It wasn't hard to find stuff to write down. Sitting down and thinking about it, the little things I took for granted actually gained a significance - shopping on the internet, a day trip to Kew Gardens, a meal out or a daft announcement on the tube that made me laugh were all potential tales that might cheer him up or give him a glimpse of a world that was increasingly going on around him but that he couldn't be part of. I think maybe that without the meditative flow of ink onto paper I wouldn't have been able to see how I could reach out to him, how I could draw him into my life and give him something as his life was ending.

These days I write cards most often, especially "thank you" cards. I even wrote one to my friend to thank her for inviting me to her wedding. I had more to say than could be said comfortably face-to-face, and I had things to say that merited being committed to paper, held in time briefly by some sense of permanence and elevated somehow by being written by hand on a page. I like receiving letters and cards, too. When we moved into the flat and people sent us cards it was such a nice surprise. It's not like seeing someone pop up on MSN or say "I'll e-mail you this photo". There's something more to it. It isn't an instant, quick form of interaction - it requires time, thought and effort. I admit I write less now, because it can be a hard thing to find the time to do. When I first went away to university I wrote much more - we all did, all my friends from school, even though we had e-mail we still used to write. The same is not true today, but making the effort to write proper letters can bring rewards. Let's not sound the death knell for proper correspondence quite yet. Send something and you don't know what you might receive in return.