Unless perhaps you’re high up in the Post Office, Fujitsu and, I’m guessing worryingly, maybe our own government, if you’ve watched the incredible real-life drama, Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, you can’t help but be deeply moved by the shocking revelations and ongoing travesty that is the Post Office Scandal. Some of the wrongs can never be righted because tragically people took their own lives over the lies and corruption, some have died, while others have had their lives torn apart and destroyed. It’s still dragging on after 20 years which as an observer is heart-breaking, but must be unimagi ..read more

27th December 2023 Hello lovely letter writers! Have you had a good Christmas? It’s a little difficult to keep track of the days around this time of year, isn’t it, but instead of spending the early evening in limbo, grazing the Christmas leftovers or looking out at the terrible weather in a trance, I thought it might be nice to hide away upstairs in my childhood bedroom and write a few words looking back on 2023 and what stood out from all the lovely highlights. Maybe I should have planned this out more. Been chronological about it, but I don’t know, me and planning? For example, for all the ..read more

Hello, lovely person(s), reading this little blog. It’s been quite a few months now, hasn’t it, but I don’t think anyone minds, do they? Life has all been a bit helter-skelter of late and I’m not the sort to give a self-imposed deadline. I’m not that disciplined for a start and I generally need a burning desire to write something, so sporadic and occasional, possibly interesting, maybe something and nothing, that’s the vibe here. Really, if I’m totally honest I found this wonderful and brand new Bullfinch notebook together with a pencil that is just the right Goldilocks consistency (see earlie ..read more

It’s always flattering to be asked my thoughts on a particular topic regarding letter writing, so it was a lovely surprise to be approached by author and writer Sophia Money-Coutts about thank you letters and their dwindling existence. Here are my ponderings… Should we always send handwritten thank you letters? As the Founder of The Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society, I would say on the whole, yes. Not to make you a good or righteous person (it will do that) or because you ought to, but because it’s a lovely opportunity to put pen to paper to someone who spent time thinking about you enou ..read more

How can it be five years since The Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society started? I remember Thursday 26th October 2017 like it was yesterday here at the dining table with all the A3 pages of content spread out in front of the computer as friend, Jo, helped me set about building a website. Months before I’d been hatching the idea for it, talking to friends about it, gauging their reaction, and scribbling layout designs and menu and manifesto and all the things I wanted it to have, ready for that day. I’m still forever grateful to Jo for giving up her time to show me the basics and getting me ..read more

It’s been just over two months since we appeared in The Guardian over the new (but I’m not sure improved) bar-coded stamps, and try as I might, looking at them still evokes a sinking heart feeling. The piece by Simon Usborne initiated lots of discussion and raised the profile of letter writing and philately, and amazingly led to over 100 new members at THLAS. It’s a bit difficult to gauge my relationship with Royal Mail from it but then I never did hear back from the CEO, Simon Thompson, in response to a letter I sent him back in February. But to be fair, he’s probably up to his neck in it at ..read more

Without fail, every time I read letters sent to me containing a little piece of a person’s life story, I always get that profound feeling that somehow the letter should be preserved, and maybe what better way than at The Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society Museum & Discovery Centre. Just little snippets of years’ worth of experiences, but there, disclosed in someone’s unique and fair hand. The diversity of lives as diverse as the stationery on which people send to me, from scrap paper to personalised letterheads or pretty cards, some expressing perhaps a solidarity for letter writing ..read more

I didn’t really want to come across all egocentric going on about my 50th birthday, but equally it’s not every day you reach half a century, is it. Also people have been so kind and generous that I just wanted to put down a little official thank you, here on the website. Usually I get really excited about my birthday – as I always say, not in any expectation of cards and presents but just an unexplained desire to tell people – however this year I didn’t really know how to feel about it. 50 seems such a large number when you write it down and it meant we’d lived here in Swanage half my life. I ..read more

I’m often asked for a template for my homemade aerogrammes so I thought I’d create a little post on the website that people can use. Below are some photos of how I make them from A4 paper but as long as you keep within your Postal Service dimensions any paper can be used such as wrapping paper, Christmas paper, wallpaper, old calendars, you name it. What’s lovely is that for Royal Mail weight and dimensions I’ve found you can enclose a teabag of your choice in the aerogrammes which doesn’t effect the cost (Letter Inland = 66p 2nd Class, 85p 1st Class, or Letter Overseas = £1.70). Please do ch ..read more

Would you be surprised if I said a letter was the catalyst for me becoming a gardener? I mean, I’ve always loved gardening but I’d never really had the confidence before to think I could do it as a living, so when the letter eldest had written all in beautiful alternate rainbow colour writing to our friends in Cornwall took off from the #BigJoinIn table we’d set up in the garden to try and recreate a bit of Purbeck Valley Folk Festival during Lockdown 2020, I hadn’t imagined it would start me down such a lovely route (I want to say up the garden path), and one which got me wondering why I hadn ..read more