A lost art?

I was reading the back of my conditioner bottle in the shower this morning (it’s amazing what you do to amuse yourself whilst you’re waiting for a deep conditioning treatment to work!) and noticed what was written under the ‘Contact us’ bit.

The bottle encouraged people to “Give us a ring, send us an email, or why not go mad and pick up a pen – and combat the global disappearance of handwriting”.

It got me thinking, I rarely write letters anymore and I’m not sure I know anyone else who writes them either. Sure, I write quite a few at work, but they don’t really count, plus, they’re typed. In fact, I only write two personal letters a year, both at Christmas, to two family friends. But when I was younger, letters and notes were a common thing.

When I was kid, every Birthday and Christmas I would have to write ‘Thank you’ letters to anyone who had given me a present. As much as I knew I had to do them, I hated it. I mean, when you’re a kid, what else do you say when you’ve got as far as “Dear Great Aunt Mable. Thank you for my book token. I have put it towards a book.”? I would sit there for ages, trying to turn 20 words into a letter; I would often end up drawing a little picture, just to fill up space.

When I was a teenager, it was all about passing notes in school (when I was there, I played truant a lot!). The notes were far more important than whatever class we were in, but mainly consisted of “Jamie is soooo fit”, “Are you coming for a fag at break?” and “Lucy snogged Darren on Friday!”. Exciting stuff!

It just doesn’t cross my mind to write a letter. Now, if I want to contact someone and don’t want to phone, then I will send them an email. It’s quicker than writing, but I guess it’s kind of sad that no one writes letters anymore.