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Now reaction is instant. Instead of receiving a letter the day after a defeat or a death and publishing it on the third day, readers can email and see their letters online at a minute past midnight.
The nature of letters is different from quasi-anonymous comments posted below articles online, too often resembling a sort of 2 a.m. delirium, like drunks overheard in a provincial bus station. A letters page is enjoyable to read because the writers are identifiable and put in an effort, and their contributions are curated. As the letter in this week’s Spectator from Vida Saunders indicates, newspapers and magazines become part of people’s lives.
Though letters on important issues of the day go at the top, the most important decision is which to put in the bottom right-hand corner, where funny letters go or those spotting an unnoticed trend. One day in 2015 we put this letter there: ‘I was interested to read about the teddy bear that accompanied a Battle of Britain pilot as I too have a little bear, with my maiden name tape sewn on it, which I gave to my fiancé to take with him on his operations over Germany during the second world war.
‘He was a Mosquito nightfighter pilot and flew 50 ops accompanied by my bear, and together they won the DFC.
‘We were married for 50 years but now, sadly, I just have the bear.
‘Jean Mellows, Dorking, Surrey.’
It was a perfect short letter: factual, poignant, reticent. It had a huge response on social media. We later published an interview with the author and published the little bear’s photo, with the DFC.
The letters page, whether in The Spectator or the Daily Telegraph, brings people together precisely because it is not generally about them, but about subjects in which they find a common interest. It’s a forum and, like a real forum, people walk about sociably, talking with one another.
Heaven knows there’s been enough to discuss, with Brexit, Covid, war and taxes. But last year came a surprise crop of quotations from school reports, many of which would not be countenanced today, some making the best of things, others indifferent or cruel. But they were memorable and I was grateful to pass them on.
‘Nigel is the best of the non-swimmers’; ‘Penny’s country dancing has improved greatly this term’; ‘Wendy is a nice girl who means well’; ‘I cannot understand what makes his parents keep him on at school’; ‘A dull boy who perks up at the prospect of food’; ‘Bowen is extremely fluent. Unfortunately not in French’; ‘Barber is the kind of child who gets paint inside his overalls’; ‘She uses too much solder’; ‘It doesn’t look like Iain will be getting a new bike for Christmas.’
Because you read about daily telegraph
Also by Christopher Howse
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