Sep
6th
Dear Nell, I'll be over on Thursday, From Luce
By Caducean Whisks
This short letter, written in pencil, was sent to my Nan by her
sister and was found amongst her possessions. The date at the top,
is just “Tuesday”.
A meaningless letter? No, it’s nine words that tell so much.
1. Nobody had phones.
2. The littlest thing had to be written in a letter, stamped, and walked to the postbox, a day or two in advance. People had conversations by letter, no need for preamble or lengthy sign-offs. These conversations could stretch over days.
3. Luce doesn’t say a time, and expects that Nell will be in, whenever she arrives. If not, she’ll wait, confident that Nell will appear soon.
4. There’s no allowance for Nell to say it’s not convenient, she’s away, she’s doing something else.
5. It took two buses to get from Luce’s to Nell’s; add on the walk to and from the bus stop and the wait in between, it’s a journey of well over an hour, but she proposed it anyway. Does this show their easy familiarity? Tell us that life was much more predictable? That Luce knew Nell would be free on Thursday because she always was? And Nell knew what time Luce would arrive because she always did?
6. It’s the kind of thing that would now be an email or text.
I recall in my university holidays, my group of friends would all write to each other, even over Christmas when we were only apart a fortnight. We found the time, each day or other day, to write to each other, to find the Basildon Bond, or the cute writing paper with matching envelopes in lilac or pink with a picture in the corner, to choose the pen with the nicest or funkiest nib, to write everything that had happened that day and what we thought about it. Pages and pages.
If the letter were to a special boy, we might spray perfume on it, or apply lipstick and kiss the back.
The arrival of the postman was exciting.
I can’t remember when I last hand-wrote a letter; or received one. Probably Christmas or my birthday, but these are summary newsletters, not representations of daily life.
Now I write emails, containing the minutiae of my day. But where’s the record of them? Hard-drives break, computers are thrown away. I never print off emails.
When it’s time for someone to sort through my belongings, a great swathe of my life will be lost for ever – the friends I had, the way my life was. No one will ever know.
Do you think that future historians will mine computer dumps for evidence of personal lives at the turn of the millennium? How else will they ever find out?
It will never be so easy to read a discarded hard drive as it is to untie a bundle of letters and reconstruct times gone by. Does it matter?
A meaningless letter? No, it’s nine words that tell so much.
1. Nobody had phones.
2. The littlest thing had to be written in a letter, stamped, and walked to the postbox, a day or two in advance. People had conversations by letter, no need for preamble or lengthy sign-offs. These conversations could stretch over days.
3. Luce doesn’t say a time, and expects that Nell will be in, whenever she arrives. If not, she’ll wait, confident that Nell will appear soon.
4. There’s no allowance for Nell to say it’s not convenient, she’s away, she’s doing something else.
5. It took two buses to get from Luce’s to Nell’s; add on the walk to and from the bus stop and the wait in between, it’s a journey of well over an hour, but she proposed it anyway. Does this show their easy familiarity? Tell us that life was much more predictable? That Luce knew Nell would be free on Thursday because she always was? And Nell knew what time Luce would arrive because she always did?
6. It’s the kind of thing that would now be an email or text.
I recall in my university holidays, my group of friends would all write to each other, even over Christmas when we were only apart a fortnight. We found the time, each day or other day, to write to each other, to find the Basildon Bond, or the cute writing paper with matching envelopes in lilac or pink with a picture in the corner, to choose the pen with the nicest or funkiest nib, to write everything that had happened that day and what we thought about it. Pages and pages.
If the letter were to a special boy, we might spray perfume on it, or apply lipstick and kiss the back.
The arrival of the postman was exciting.
I can’t remember when I last hand-wrote a letter; or received one. Probably Christmas or my birthday, but these are summary newsletters, not representations of daily life.
Now I write emails, containing the minutiae of my day. But where’s the record of them? Hard-drives break, computers are thrown away. I never print off emails.
When it’s time for someone to sort through my belongings, a great swathe of my life will be lost for ever – the friends I had, the way my life was. No one will ever know.
Do you think that future historians will mine computer dumps for evidence of personal lives at the turn of the millennium? How else will they ever find out?
It will never be so easy to read a discarded hard drive as it is to untie a bundle of letters and reconstruct times gone by. Does it matter?
Viewing 1 - 1 of 1
Subscribe
Visitor counter
Blog Roll Centre
Blog Hints
