Just found out themes for Europa for the next few years.
2014 will be National Musical Instruments - I wonder if this will include the Harp and Bagpipes for the UK.... What other instruments could feature?
2015 will be Ecology in Europe - Think Green.
2016 will be Old Toys
I look forward to seeing what Royal Mail, and other European stamp authorities come up with.
Friday, 10 May 2013
Friday, 3 May 2013
Musings on letters...
One of the things I
remember from my childhood is letters: letters my mother wrote
slipped into first day covers to her brother far away in Australia;
letters she received from him and letters from other family and
friends. Letters were an important form of communication for her.
Then, a postage stamp was a lot cheaper than the cost of a phone
call, and it didn't matter if you were out when the communiqué
arrived, unlike a telephone call (and an answering machine or
voice-mail service are not the place to leave personal communication).
A letter could be savoured, and read at your own leisure.
In secondary school, my
French teacher handed out forms for the International Youth Service
for those wanting penpals. She said it would help us practise our
French and other language skills. I jumped at the chance, completed
the form and handed in the money. Within a couple of months, I
received two letters: one came from France, from a girl whose name I
think began with the letter J, a Josephine or Jacqueline perhaps; the
other came all the way from Singapore. I was so excited having a
letter from such an exotic place. I wrote back to both, but committed
a faux pas with the one from Singapore. I didn't realise that they
write surname before first name, and the girl wrote to correct me.
Somewhere along the line, I stopped writing, maybe due to exam
revision and pressure, and lack of time, but then that's just an
excuse: I had time to go window-shopping, play computer games and
help my dad with the gardening. I did correspond with a girl in
Germany, part of a school exchange project but that also didn't last
much beyond the exchange visits.
After university, I
went Interailing round northern Europe with my mother, visiting
Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, even going to Hell and back.
Along the way, I met some interesting people and even one from my
past, from my secondary school in the same year but we were in
different classes. I exchanged addresses with a couple of the new
people, intending to write to them but either I never did or I didn't
receive a reply.
Then, I decided I
wanted penpals again, placing adverts via a newspaper and its
associates worldwide. I had some responses but only one blossomed
into a long correspondence. Life became busy again, with so much to
do and so little time, and I had a baby, so even my long
correspondence suffered a bit. I found myself losing friends from
university although one did write, well, I mean type for a while
sending me half-drunk/half-asleep composed missives. These actually
made me laugh, and I recently heard a quote somewhere that through
Laughter comes Wisdom.
About 5 years ago, I
decided I wanted to try to recapture my German skills, when I was
really quite fluent and was quite a competent reader, but ich hatte
fast alles vergessen. I remembered my French teacher and sought new
penfriends. Unfortunately, I was finding the German was just out of
my reach (perhaps it was the course I was on), and many of the German
correspondences did not work out. Now, I correspond with over two
dozen people around the world, ranging from a sweet 18 year old
Lithuanian girl whose English is marvellous and she is contemplating
studying at a UK university, to people with adult children and
grandchildren. Letters have become an important part of my life,
although no longer for my mother due to her arthritis making it
difficult for her to write more than just a postcard and now she
prefers to use the telephone to keep in touch, even ringing her
sister-in-law in Australia every couple of months.
This year, I turned 40
years old and my mother will turn 80. Although her health is
reasonable, in the next decade, I expected she will pass from this
life and I hoped she would leave me with her letters: the ones from
her brother spanned over 40 years. However, the week of my birthday,
she informs me she had shredded all her letters. I keep all the
letters I have received, and I also hoard letter-writing paper and
other stationery for eventual use. I recently came across a review
from a psychiatrist on a book about hoarding, written by a
psychologist and a professor of social work studying hoarders. For
one woman, the review said that possessions help her preserve her
identity and relive past events. When I heard my mother tell me she
had shredded those letters, a personal family history, I felt a part
of me yet to come disappear; I am lessened, and will not be able to
experience those events of my family's past. She has kept family
photos though. Although a picture can tell a story of a thousand
words, it is still just an image and without words, has no meaning:
words come from thought itself.
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