By Laura Stachowski

There is something so charming about a letter. Perhaps it is an over-romanticised opinion formed from growing up in the world of rapid and public communication. After all, it is likely that the people who wrote letters put as little thought in their appeal as we do into most of our messages. They might even scoff at how someone could look at the letter as something other than a piece of paper with some words on it, because at the end of the day it is just a letter. But I like to think that there is something special about sitting to write something to somebody with an intention, even if the intention was just to ramble on about an annoyance that happened that day. It barely enters most of our minds how lucky we are to be able to communicate the way we do, because the majority of us have never had to live without it.

The deliberateness of the letter seems to mark it out as one of the sincerest forms of connection between people, having to convey so much in such a way that couldn’t be misunderstood. It was slow going; if you insulted someone over a letter it could be weeks until the whole ordeal could be cleared up. The letter writer’s equivalent of a risky text would have them panicking for weeks. This all seems very personal and thus it seems equally as nosey that our museums are covered with letters that were intended to be seen only by one or two people. It is, however, one of the most direct ways that we can understand the people of the past. The hardships which they went through, the things which brought them joy, the way that they lived, and the things that they cared about.

In 2020, when the world was plunged into one of the strangest and scariest times, where people were isolated, lonely, and afraid, Barnardo’s CEO Natasha Kaplinsky put together Letters from Lockdown, a collection from the people from all walks of life talking about their experiences of the pandemic. The National Archive launched their ‘with love’ exhibition which saw a collection of letters on different themes, from hope to suffering to family, brought together from hundreds of years, showing that the things that we feel are universal. We connect through words and understanding. And we do it so often now that we don’t even realise that every time we like a post, cry at a video, and reply to a message we are feeling a sense of unity with someone we might never meet. When we read a letter, it seems so distinctly purposeful, we may read it with more care and appreciate the effort that has gone into it. This is why in times of struggle we revert back to a form of communication where more can be said in a thoughtful manner with the intention to reach out to another person.

In spite of my personal love of letters, however, I think we would be making an oversight if we deemed our forms of communications as lesser. I’m guilty of hypocrisy because I look down on it myself; I often think that there’s a lot of meaningless things out on the internet that, had it been given a second thought, wouldn’t have made it into the public. While this allows harmful content to reach people, it also creates room for positives. It is such a strangely warm thing, to think that all of the emotions that we experience have already been experienced, that someone right now feels the same way as you do about something. We can look to the past through letters and see that these things are true, but right now we live in the age of opportunity to connect on a level which has never been seen before. We can be connected in mere seconds across oceans, mountains, and skies, essentially conquering all natural barriers just to talk to each other. I think now there is room for a deeper appreciation of what we have made communication; fleeting thoughts and quick responses show our humanity and in their own way are even more special than the letter.

I will probably always be a bit of a hypocrite because I’ll never let go of believing in the superiority of the long letter, but it evidently still has its place and hopefully always will. But maybe right now we should put a little more thought into the things we say over messages just in case one day in the future they are plastered on the walls of a museum exhibition.

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