When abroad on holiday, I still send postcards to friends and family.
A Times columnist, Emma Duncan, also appreciates postcards, spurred on by her late stepfather, who was an MP in the North of England (emphases mine):
Near the end of his very successful nine and a half decades on the planet, as measured by the number of lives brightened by his existence, I asked him whether he had any lessons to pass on about how to live well. He thought for a while, during which I assumed he was brooding over the difficulty of encapsulating the grand philosophy that had guided him through most of a century. “Well,” he said finally, “you can never send too many warm postcards.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Emma Duncan experienced a moment of pleasure recently when she received a thank-you postcard from a friend:
In the digital blizzard in which we live, it is rare to receive anything in physical form other than a catalogue, a bill or a leaflet offering £2 off substandard pizza. But one day this week a postcard landed on my doormat from a friend, thanking me for lending her my coat — my mother’s, a particularly stylish number from the Sixties — outside at a party. As thanks for the service, the sending of a card, which must be bought, written, stamped and posted, was quite over the top. That’s exactly why it gave me such pleasure. The greater the trouble taken to deliver a small gesture of affection, the warmer the payload.
It’s time we revived the ancient, lost custom of sending postcards. They really do warm the heart.
4 comments
October 27, 2021 at 10:53 am
dearieme
We like sending them. Our friends like receiving them. Except the time we forgot to put stamps on them.
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October 28, 2021 at 8:47 pm
churchmouse
Was that some time ago or do they still deliver postcards with no postage?
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October 29, 2021 at 11:10 am
dearieme
A few years ago – by which I mean about four or five. The friends received notes saying that there was post awaiting them at the PO and that they’d have to pay postage. Happily I’d realised in time to send them e-mails so they presumably abandoned the cards to their fate.
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October 29, 2021 at 12:34 pm
churchmouse
Oh, wow, that recently.
It was good of you to own up and notify them by email of the mistake.
Well, I would have paid postage just to see how lovely your holiday destination was. There is also a delightful spontaneity in postcard prose that is not to be missed.
Enjoy your weekend.
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