your letters
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Our pick of your best letters, pictures & wise words…
Speedy snail mail
• With all the recent concerns in the Post Office, I thought readers would be interested in hearing about the post in Stepney in the Fifties and early Sixties. My dad used to catch a bus around 8am to his job in Regent Street in the West End and, on arrival, would sometimes be asked to do overtime, which he never turned down because the money came in handy. But as we had no phone, he would write out a postcard to catch the 9am post, and it would arrive at our third post, after lunch, so mum would know what time to expect him home!
Quite the party!
• This photo is from the Sixties and shows my aunty and her daughter (front row), and my uncle (far right), at a party. My uncle will be 90 next year and my aunty is now in her 80s, but they’ve both kept their sense of fun and love socialising with friends and family.
Are we buttoned up?
• I belong to a lovely small craft club, where we also take it in turns to give a ‘thought for the day’ talk. Recently we made button necklaces and, when sorting through the buttons, I started to think they are so like people in all sorts of ways.
Buttons can seem plain, ordinary, nothing much to them, but look closer and there may be another side you wouldn’t see. It’s the same with people: they can be shy, quiet, but they may have more about them if we take time to notice. Others are bright and on full show, but some folk may hide behind the bright bold look to conceal their true feelings.
We all have a purpose in life, as do the buttons that help us do up our coats and feel warm and protected.
STAR LETTER
✪ I wanted to say thank you for being the reason for a special friendship, albeit a long distance one – stretching from Wales to North Yorkshire.
Some time ago, I responded to a request to write to a fellow reader of Yours. I have always been a bit cynical of such adverts, but, on this occasion, overcame that feeling. My friend was always cheerful and had a lovely sense of humour which came out in her writing, and we commiserated with each other on the isolation the recent pandemic had created. I was interested in all the crafts she made in aid of charity, and she enjoyed my antics of performing in amateur dramatics groups.
I became concerned when a couple of my recent letters remained unanswered. Two days ago, I received a kind letter from a total stranger to say that my penpal had sadly passed away. I have all the letters and cards my penpal ever sent me which I shall now treasure even more, but also felt the need to thank Yours for being the instigator of the friendship, and to encourage others to respond, as I did, to a plea for writing to someone who had started out a total stranger.
Yours says: We’
