The art of letter writing

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane 

An Post is advising children to post their letters early to Santa this year.

It’s been busy in the workshop, all the elves are working hard, helping Santa packing toys and gifts.

Provided Santa receives the letter in good time he promises to reply just before Christmas.

The Irish postal service works closely with Santa. It’s a great idea that Santa has agreed to use the postal service to send replies to all the children in Ireland.

When last did you receive a personal hand-written letter? Or when was the last time you sat down with a pen, ballpoint or pencil to write a letter to a friend?

Have you noticed that most letters we get these days from charities asking us to donate money to their organisation are typed in a handwriting font? No doubt the idea is to make the correspondence look personal.

RTE’s Ryan Tubridy has been talking about the art of letter writing over the last few weeks. Indeed, last Wednesday he read out a letter a woman wrote to her sister. She was 50 years late writing it. She was apologising to her sister for something she had done to her on Christmas Day 50 years ago.

It certainly caught my attention. It set me thinking of the power of a letter. And it might even be true to say that a handwritten letter carries far more authenticity than a printed one.

There’s a personal touch about a handwritten letter. It has that quality of being original, being real, unique too.

Is it at all possible to type a love letter? It sounds almost unimaginable. Love letters of their nature surely have to be written in longhand.

When we go through boxes of old family letters we stop and wonder at the person behind the hand that wrote the letter. Finding old letters is akin to finding a treasure trove.

The day after I started writing this column I received a handwritten letter from someone I met in September. I read it a number of times. The letter was so friendly and kind that I actually read it to a friend of mine. Yes, we answer text messages and emails but there’s a difference.

Typewriters were in general use in the 1960s and personal computers probably in the mid-1980s. 

Apple Computers was launched in 1976. Was that the beginning of the end of the old-fashioned handwritten letter? Is there something ironic about the start date of Apple? April Fool’s Day 1976.

Even with all our technology, our signature is still a vital component to all important documents and cards. Our electronic passports, driving licences, every piece of electronic data we carry around with us has our unique signature on it. And of course our signature is handwritten.

Signing the register at a wedding ceremony always gets a special place of importance.

Our signature puts the seal of approval on a document.

In an age when we are becoming ever so conscious of protecting our environment and keeping in touch with who and what we are I’m wondering might handwriting be on the verge of a renaissance.

A friend of mine, who is clued into design and fashion, pointed out to me the number of shop signs and other public signage that is currently being done in handwriting form.

It is much nicer to write to Santa than send him an SMS or an email.

The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe says: ‘Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.’

And did you know Meghan Markle is an accomplished calligrapher?