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When was the last time the postie’s arrival gave you a thrill? Unless you are strangely enthusiastic about acquiring another bill to add to the pile, or a fistful of junk mail destined for the recycling bin – or you have other business with the visitor in question – it might well have been years, if not decades.
There is a passionate contingent of people, however, for whom the clatter of the letterbox and the sight of mail cascading onto the doormat is guaranteed to provoke excitement: the often-unobserved band of letter writers in our midst who quietly but enthusiastically continue to put pen to paper and champion what has long been considered by many to be an antiquated form of communication.
Letter-writing might sound like a curiosity from a bygone era to those who have become accustomed to or grew up immersed in email, instant messaging and social media. But devotees of the medium are determined to revive the form.
Dinah Johnson and Jennifer Bishop are perhaps among the most dedicated of their number. Both women are on a mission to spread the word – by post, of course.
Johnson, from Swanage, Dorset, is the founder of the Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society, which she formed in 2017 to share her enjoyment of the practice. The group, which Johnson, 49, characterises as a “movement” rather than a formal society over which she presides, has amassed more than 700 members around the world, with many of them juggling as many as 10 pen pals each.
Bishop, a calligrapher by trade, runs London Letters, a studio that sells stationery and personalised handwritten messages to order. The 31-year-old also oversees her own international pen pal club, which has nearly 500 members.
They were both introduced to the practice in the way many of us were – by being instructed to write post-birthday and Christmas thankyou letters to family members who had sent them gifts. “I’ve always been a letter writer… My sister got away with never writing thank-you letters, but I loved it,” recalls Johnson.
Although she has composed hundreds of them over the years, the act of sending and receiving a letter still strikes Johnson as slightly mysterious and romantic. “You write a letter, put it into an envelope, put a stamp on it and it magically gets transported to that person,” she says. “Well, Royal Mail delivers it, but it still seems sort of magical.”
For Bishop, initially a reluctant thank-you letter writer, it was winning a handwriting contest when she was 10 and receiving a calligraphy pen as a prize that set her on the path to a career in which hand cramps and ink spills are occupational hazards.
“It became almost a novelty to my friends later that I was doing this after every birthday and Christmas,” Bishop says. “After saying goodbye to my friends from school, it became quite a nice way to stay in touch.”
First-class letter writing tips to take note of
1 Special stationery can be delightful, but any scrap of paper will do
“Fancy paper is lovely but there’s also a charm about any paper, whether it’s pulled from a notebook, the back of a menu or even napkin,” says Johnson. The same goes for pens: “Who doesn’t want a Montblanc fountain pen? But any pen will do.” To avoid irritating messes, though, she advises making sure that the pen you use isn’t one that “splodges”.2 Write in your own voice and keep your intended recipient at the front of your mind
Imagine you are having a conversation with them and write as you would talk to them. “Write from the heart and always ask a few questions if you can. Don’t feel like you should be a literary genius. The recipient will be surprised and delighted to hear from you,” says Johnson.3 Short and sweet is a good place to start
If sitting down to a blank sheet of paper feels daunting, Johnson suggests starting with a postcard: “The picture gives you something to talk about and there is no pressure to write lots. Letter-writing is a skill that develops over time.”4 Let go of your expectations
“Write with no expectation of a reply – otherwise it becomes an obligation [for the recipient], and where’s the fun in that?”, Johnson says. If you are hopeful of a reply, however, be sure to include your own address, or you could be waiting some time. With personal, friendly letters, there’s no specific etiquette about where you note down your address, according to Johnson. For a formal letter, it should go at the top, on the right-hand side of the page.5 Don’t worry about mistakes
Don’t let your inner schoolteacher put you off. Spelling errors, grammatical blunders and scribbles are all part of the charm of a letter, Johnson believes. “Spelling, grammar and punctuation are important in a job application, but friends shouldn’t be saying: ‘You’ve put a spelling mistake in there!’”
Despite their penchant for such as a decidedly analogue pastime, Johnson and Bishop are both enthusiastic users of social media, WhatsApp and email.
“I love the digital world, I’m always on Twitter,” Johnson insists. “I’m not against it, but it’s changed the way we communicate with each other. We’re putting stuff out there all the time, but we’re not connecting. You’re making your friends an audience. Writing a letter puts you in a different mindset to texting and WhatsApping.”
“Running a business, I’m on my emails and laptop most of the time,” Bishop says.
And, perhaps ironically, Instagram has let her connect with other calligraphers and letter-writers:“It has been amazing to meet and talk to like-minded people of all different age out there,” she says.
However, Bishop believes that while there is a place for email and WhatsApp, digital communication will never offer the same “magic” as physical letters.
“The digital world is so convenient, but sometimes it is nice to sprinkle a little bit of magic on something, to make someone feel special,” she says.
In fact, Bishop suspects that as our digital lives continue to expand, the appeal of handwritten letters will only grow.
“Lots of people in our pen pal club are younger than me,” she says. “Lots of people want to move away from instant messaging.”
More on Writing
Pointing to the intense period of separation the planet experienced during the pandemic, Bishop says letters can help to ignite or maintain a sense of closeness in a unique way, by reflecting part of the writer’s personality and offering discreet clues into their state of mind.
“You get to see the person’s handwriting, the type of paper they’ve used,” she says. “Have they got lots of tea stains on the page? Or are the words beautifully formed in stunning calligraphy? It is such a personal thing.”
Johnson says: “You can think you know someone inside out and then they can send you a letter and you can see a completely new side of them. If you want to get to the heart of somebody, do it through a handwritten letter.”
Perhaps part of what makes receiving a letter special is that, implicit in the simple fact of its existence, the sender has gone out of their way to show they are thinking of you.
“It does take a lot of effort to write a letter – get the paper, write the letter, find an envelope, get a stamp, go to the postbox,” Johnson says.
Bishop adds: “The fact you have taken some time out of your day in advance to write to them, and to make sure that it arrives on time, is quite special.”
One potential barrier to bringing back letter-writing on a grand scale is what will, for many, be its prohibitive cost. This week, Royal Mail raised the price of a first-class stamp by 10p, to 95p. A second-class stamp has gone up by 2p, to 68p.
Royal Mail attributed the rises partly to the decline in letter volumes in the digital age. Johnson is not impressed; she has written a letter of complaint to Royal Mail’s chief executive, Simon Thompson.
“I told him it’s like penalising people who do write letters… If you put prices up, you’ll get a decline [in people who do it],” she says.
“They probably see me as a pain. We are doing our little handwritten letter revival; they are the big guns.
“I said: ‘Do you write letters? I hope you do, then you will know the magic of it’.”
