Harry's Blog

As you know, I'm going to be very busy this weekend. But it's also big weekend for the lovely RJ too as she is celebrating a major, if not the major, event in her life. And for a few days before and during this event she's going to be incommunicado to some extent – at least away from the trappings of a modern technological existence.

That means that to communicate with RJ I have to put pen to paper. I do love writing letters but it is actually some years since I've actually done so. I started a letter this morning and two pages in I was getting quite an ache in my wrist¹. I'm pushing on though as letter writing is such a more personal and special way of communicating that's all too rare these days.

Back in what one might imagine as the halcyon days of romantic letter writing², several hundred years ago, lovers would write across hundreds of miles – thousands in the case of naval officers – distances they could not travel in a hurry. I can't imagine what it must have been like to wait for the packet to bring letters from one's sweetheart half the world away. Sending a letter across a city seems such a small journey by comparison.

Some say the growth in email and instant messaging has killed romantic communication. I agree to some extent. Picture yourself stationed in Sydney Harbour as a Royal Naval officer in 1800, the packet from England arrives after a journey of six months, it brings for you a sweetly scented envelope from your distant beloved half the world away. You open the lovingly sealed envelope and with breathless anticipation read the message inside "Bo! U iz wll fit innit, luv u!!!!!!!!!"

It would hardly make up for the months without hearing anything. I'm amazed so many people managed to hold together romances over such long distances - but they most certainly did. It must be down to what they wrote in those letters, if a letter is going to take six months to reach your sweetheart I supposed you'd make damn sure it was a letter worthy of the journey.

I think I'd need a heck of a lot of practice to write a letter that good, worth sending for thousands of miles. But I'm sure the words I'm scratching across a page this morning will make RJ smile, and that's as much a gift to those around her as it is to her.

¹_{The first one to suggest that's par for the course in my love life gets a smack on the hooter!}
²_{"My dearest eternal love, have you recovered from the rickets and cholera yet?"}