The Longhand Letter

This postbox has been here for more than a century. It is on the Prestbury Road just beyond Pittville Circus roundabout if heading into town. Havanas Coffee House is where Mr Gillier the Grocer supplied provisions to 20 and 25 Windsor Street a hundred meters the other side of the circus; the letter box to which I’d post letters for Grandma, and while you’re there dear, take my purse and ask Mr Gillier for a cabbage and when the next bananas might be in, please? And remember, at the circus, do as we always do, look right, left, and right again and only cross if safe to do so. Haha! The Circus. One day I accompanied my Aunt Bette who lived at Number Twenty. And as I did with Grandma, I took her hand. I’ll never forget it. “Ken. You’re a young man now. Don’t hold my hand, but you may take my arm!’ When I reported thus to my parents that evening, they laughed and as I walked out feeling twenty feet tall (even though I was only eight or nine at most), I heard Mum chuckle. ‘I don’t know. That’s just typical of Bette, Des! And Dad’s very knowing chuckle in reply!! ‘He’ll be wanting long trousers next!!’ Now, there’s a thought!!!!

The Longhand Letter

… that wonderful rising Blackpool Tower; of delight and happy memories to millions down two centuries

I

“How enjoyable
to be sitting in the couch
drinking a tea,
listening to quiet music
and as the oil is perfuming the flat,
reading your letter, Hugs.”

Ludovico und Heidi
Madrid, Granada 

II

A longhand letter
arriving by land-post via airmail,
a Century ago
by P&O or Cunard Liners.

In person, personal, confidential;
of intimate confidences and pleasures
that no email, instagram, facebook,
wattsapp, blog or twitter,
can equal.

To feel the crispness of pages
last touched by their author,
To see the ink, deletions,
blottings
and occasional erasing
as the writer attempts
a better phrase
to convey the meaning;
perhaps most intimate of all
in a brief, oh so brief,
and unintended finger-print. . .
the face behind the veil.

To receive a dispatch
from another continent,
a window on the world
of a different civilisation,
three weeks or more
in passage arriving.

III

Seventy years on,
let your hand flow
freely across the paper;
stay away from cyber.

Rebuke the keyboard
Return to paper
The cartridge pen even.

And if you’re really ambitious
and desire uniqueness
and intimacy of touch,
then bottled ink
conveyed by gold or chromium nib.

These, dear reader,
are the art and craft
of writing.

IV

The longhand letter
is free of cut and paste,
that illusory patchwork
of irregular writing
bewitching you
into believing
these words are just for you …
yet circulated
to all and sundry,
sometimes openly
but more oft by that
horrid hidden BCC

Sadly you know different
The scissors are obvious.
The glue is not
that which binds your souls
but is someone else’s,
and it hurts to relegate
friendship to second class status
on the pretence of a
first class standing,
and the signed off name
is but the default signature
in a different font and hue,
and masquerading, its writer thinks,
the old-fashioned first class stamp.

V

So encourage others
by writing to them
the individual longhand letter.

VI

Make a point
of marking your envelope
with the locale
from which it comes,
a town or city,
seaside resort,
coffee house, tea shop
a park, a promenade even;
something that denotes
your individuality...
and above all
the uniqueness of your letter.

A one-off
written to your friend,
or loved one
or even lover

And let it be that
intimate communication
joining afresh two halves
of one whole
as in former days.

Such communication
is no less physical
and as intimate
as those times together.

VII

Have your pen and paper
with you,
If not
a napkin will do.
And with your hand
and prompt despatch by land post
and airmail,
it will become a priceless heirloom,
a window on the world
of an earlier generation,
a different era,
a different time,
a different long lost way of life
that descendants
treasured beyond description
by your descendants

VIII

Don't fall for the coldness
of the cyber letter,
silly sentiments
uttered on a whim
without foundation,
without meaning,
hanging merely
on that ubiquitous
send key.

No! Let the time
you spend in absentia
with your loved one
be physical,
abounding,
descriptive
unending.

Kenneth Thomas Webb
Liverpool

February 27, 2021
All Rights Reserved
Alle Rechte vorbehalten
Das Vereinigte Königreich

United Kingdom - Germany - Austria - Australia - New Zealand - Canada - USA

© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2021

One of the Fifteen Founding Members of Leaders Lodge

Author Note

In the peaceful quietude of the Parisian Room at the top of the stairs and through the door, a real haven with just the sound of the seagulls above, wet and damp downstairs with that clinging mist off the sea, but up here, dimmed lights and a cup of tea; an intimate connection with Granada, those cosy fireside chats with Mark and Steve - putting the world to rights - and stroking the cats, and just across the way ~ my friend; that wonderful rising Blackpool Tower; of delight and happy memories to millions down the centuries.

16 Lord Street Blackpool 12.50am

First written January 19, 2010

Aunt Bette (1941)

Yet to graduate to long trousers … now THERE’s a thought!

Letters home from Ken, my uncle, on pilot training in Alabama USA are an absolute delight …a window onto an age long long. From what Dad has said over a lifetime, the ‘you may take my arm’, Ken would have been merciless with his sister-in-law, and as we see from these family archive photographs, life continued despite the world being at total war. Ken Webb Jnr.