Manners make the world go around and bring back letter writing!

Forgive me whilst I ruminate....................            

Being born in the late 1950's and having been shuttled off to a series of  Roman Catholic Convent Boarding Schools from the age of 9 years, (two of which promptly closed down as I was just managing to blend into the background) I am an inveterate letter writer.  Letters home were a ritual overseen by one of the Nuns and composed usually on a Sunday.  I can't recall contents and my mother not being one for sentimentality or as she described it "a soul trot" did not keep her children's missives.  I do remember the excitement as the post came to school.  Letters were laid out on the pews lining the corridor to the refectory and there was always an anticipatory jostling and scrabbling in the hope that there was a tangible link to home amongst the envelopes laid out in alphabetical order. When I spent some months au pairing in Athens, my late and much beloved Father wrote to me on a weekly basis.  I still treasure some of his letters and wish that I had kept more.  I've always found the receipt of a letter a joyous event. I write as I speak, eveyrthing from the minutiae of my day to family matters, home and gardening to hopes, dreams, anxieties, spiritual meanderings.  The best letters are written with spontaneity, words crossed out as thoughts alter in mid sentence, and items  jotted down as ideas crowd the brain and run faster than the pen. From a young age I wrote Thank you letters for presents received; for outings given, for holidays spent with maiden Aunts and for invitations to lunch/dinner.  It is second nature to me and now to my daughter who for many years I encouraged, cajoled and forcibly directed the writing of thank you letters. 
                             
                       
A letter differs from any other form of contact in that it can involve the ritual of selecting fine stationary and a fountain pen to using a sheet of A4 if there is nothing else to hand.  I once wrote a letter on a dried maple leaf and posted it to test the Royal Mail.  It was delivered in a cellophane wrapper to the addressee!  A Thank you letter takes time to compose, minor alterations notwithstanding and demonstrates the appreciation of a gift selected and received, a social event attended and is an important social link which warms the recipient and at the very least is good manners.  As soon as a child can write they should be responsible for writing a thank you letter with guidance and encouragement from an adult until it becomes a self directed routine.   I remember sending gifts to the children of friends and receiving thank you letters written by the mother or a telephone thank you via the mother and I ceased to provide gifts once the children became teenagers.  Call me bolshie but this should be a reciprocal event.    We need to reconnect with one another and to show tangible appreciation for one another's thoughtfulness evidenced by giving some of our time, consideration and gratitude.  Positive feedback nurtures relationships.

                                                   Make 2013 the year of the letter