The Lost Art of Letter Writing

Not widely hated by everyone feetlebaum. Each to their own!

My handwriting is and always has been dreadful. I find it hard to write much by hand without making really silly errors. My head knows what to write but my hand doesn't always get it right.

The only way I can do it is to concentrate on every letter as I write it. I waste many Happy "bithday" cards or envelopes, when capital letters appear in the wrong places along with other mistakes. I am extremely self concious about it.

Thanks to the OU I discovered I do have dyslexia. I do write letters but on a computer, but it loses that individual touch.

When I was undertaking my last course of training at Birmingham University in 2007, one of the recommended fonts for my portfolio was Comic Sans on the basis that it is said to be one of the easiest for people with dyslexia to read. I had always thought of it as a more casual font, so I found this quite interesting.

I can remember typing letters 40 years ago. The last time I wrote one by hand must have been a little before that. Email, forums, etc. are so much easier. Even they are changing - I have a forum where one of the important points is that members each have a personal journal where they can keep a long term record of their progress. It's almost died now because people are moving to Facebook. There is no concept of a journal there, although people can use blogs, and all I see on my main Facebook page is the last hour's worth of trivia.

You must have a very busy Facebook. My first page usually covers several days. I suppose it depends how many FB friends one has and how much they use FB.

Yes, dorset, just picked up your last. I don't mean to knock old stylemletter either. I encourage DD to write to her sisters who don't live at home any more and she prefers to write by hand so that she can add drawings. I did point out, however, that emails can be printed. I have done this with the precious ones that I didn't want to lose, including a couple of dozen that I got from various continents when DD3 was born. I have stuck them in her baby memory book. One advantage – print takes up less space than hand written stuff, which was useful for fitting them all in. Modern technology does not prevent us from keeping memories. That was my point only.

Dorset

I had a great day today, I looked at all my old letters and it was a joy.
Had you not started this thread I wouldn't have even thought about it.

I especially liked the ones from old boyfriends, made me feel really happy and brought back some damn good memories. Now back to reality, oh well, nice while it lasted.

POGS - what do you plan to do with those letters from your old boyfriends? Do you leave them for your children or DGC to read when you are no longer here (sorry to appear so morbid!) or do you plan to destroy them at some point? Just asking because I had some old letters which I'm not sure that I would have liked my children to have read so I tore them up a few years ago.

yogagran

I think my daughter will find them amusing. They are not embarassing in any way, just sweet and it will surprise her, her old mum 'could pull'.

Pogs I did have letters from old boyfriends but my ex-husband took offence and threw them away!

Dorset

Oooh er.

I don't know which is worse, a husband that is jealous or, like mine, a husband that couldn't care less!

What's even worse is not to have any letters from old boyfriends with which to find out what sort mine is....

Ana
Oh blimey.

Oh dear, POGS, didn't mean to drive you to drink!

Many years ago, I received a letter from an ex-girlfriend, in which she told me she was re-marrying, and described the gentleman in glowing terms.
I never found her hand easy to decipher, but still... I turned the page, and the sentence "And what a cock!" leaped out at me. Well - OK - good for you dear - bit too much information, but...

Several years later, dining with them, he having turned out a marvellous repast, it dawned on me that what she had actually written was, "...what a COOK!".

I never told her.

feetle

@POGS "I don't know which is worse, a husband that is jealous or, like mine, a husband that couldn't care less!"

Oh you are so much better off with him - I loathe jealousy, and think of it as marital cancer...

I hate Bookman Old Style, love Comic Sans, and quite enjoy experimenting with different type-faces, although not all at once!

We are encouraging our DGD to write -they are very slow at writing in Swiss schools-and have promised to write back by return of post-we now get emails to say a letter has been written!

Stansgran

I bet you look forward to seeing the postman!. Lovely.

My handwriting is very legible as I only print, I do not use joined up writing, because as a kid I was ridiculed for my handwriting. I love letter writing and used to have a penfriend, however when she died a few years ago I couldn't find another one they do not seem so popular as years ago.

Hello everyone, I am an artist working in London and my current project is about writing letters. I found this thread while browsing online and I couldn't resist leaving a comment. Below is a link to my group where you can download the brief:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/482550538445298/

I would be honoured if any of you had a look, maybe you could even take part yourselves and tell your friends? It would mean a lot. Thank you for your time, kindest regards,
Harrison Moore

I guess the recent increase in postage charges will be another disincentive to hand written posted letters.
I sent a cheque in the post 3 wks ago.It has not yet arrived.!!!!!!

I went to live / work in London, my late wife's and my parents were in Birmingham.
We did not write letters as we phoned both our parents most days and visited them and they visited us.
It would be very rare for us not to see them at least once in a month.
We did e mail towards the end as well.

Frank

How I wish my mother had kept the letters I wrote from Kenya in my 20s. I might have cringed reading them, but they would have been interesting nevertheless as would the letters my aunt used to write to me from what was then Northern Rhodesia.