Mr. Postman

There must be some mail today, from my girlfriend so far away, please mister postman look and see if there's a letter, a letter for me.

So wrote the beatles way back in the 1960's. Yes I can still remember when letter writing was the most common form of communication. In 1959 when I went to boarding school every Sunday I wrote home and eagerly awaited the weekly reply from my family. Whether that was to receive news or my 2 shillings and sixpence (12.5 pence) pocket money I couldn't say.

Be that as it may over the next eight years letter writing was my main means of communication with family and friends and especially girlfriends. Purple prose and love poems replaced news all scrawled in my famously appalling handwriting.

There are famous letters of course Screwtapes, Samuel Pepys, Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton. In the 18th century the Duke of Devonshire, Georgiana the duchess, and their "friend" Lady Elizabeth Foster (Bess) lived in a menage a trois. They wrote many love letters but because they were carried by couriers much of it was in a kind of code.

Code has been the stock in trade of letter writers down the years. During World War 2servicemen would write code words to their wives and girlfriends. Was it censorship or sortage of paper who knows? But the Bluey as they were known spawned such famous acronyms as SWALK - Sealed With A Loving Kiss, or the more risque NORWICH Nickers Off When I Come Home.

So text speak although a product of the techno age is not a new idea. So what is the point of all this you ask my dear friend. Well twitter has reduced the flowing pages of letters to 140 characters...is this a good thing. Personally I find I have to think far more about what I say. But it limits and sometimes stifles the sense of what I want to convey.

Do I write letters...no, email has largely replaced that and I am not a great texter.
But letters still fascinate me and I can't help wondering how some of the great love affairs would have been conducted by text email or twitter.

Any ideas....perhaps that should be the subject of another post.