Putting Pen to Paper

 

I wish we still wrote letters like people used to do

With a pen and piece of paper and stick a stamp on too

Messages and emails don’t have the same cache

They’re fired off willy-nilly, hundreds every day

 

Meanings can be misconstrued, ambiguities are rife

Predictive text confuses, typos a part of life

Letters were more personal, they took more time to write

Each word considered carefully put down in black and white

 

We found a letter recently while going through mum’s things

She’d treasured it for decades with her necklaces and rings

She knew her dad had written it, he’d wanted her to know

That he loved her more than words could say, he’d written to tell her so

 

I remember getting letters, addresses written out in ink

Some of them by airmail, so exotic I would think

I used to write to Auntie Ann, she lived in New York City

I’d love to get her letters, she used to be so witty

 

I kept them in a special box and read them all the time

You have to bear in mind this was 1979

We had no mobile phones and just 3 channels on tv

So a letter coming in the post was thrilling then for me

 

Things got more exciting when I was in my teens

I met a boy in France, we were both so full of beans

Our letters were so passionate, he loved me more than life

We wanted to get married, I was going to be his wife

 

I’ve still got all his letters, they’re in a box upstairs

I’ve kept them with the photographs, so groovy in our flares

Our love dwindled over time though, it didn’t stand a chance

But I still have them to remind me of that holiday in France