Catherine Mack: ‘I watched this woman crying as the words poured on to paper’

I have been doing lots of clearing out lately. Not just of cupboards and clothes but also of the metaphorical “stuff” that has been brimming over in my brain.

The former led me to discover a very precious box tucked away under the stairs. Packed with letters I have received that I have kept for as long as I can remember. The latter led me to finally leave Facebook – a less precious place, packed with stuff that often made me feel inadequate, irate or, quite simply, immersed in information overload.

The box of letters was a reminder of a time when I loved nothing more than to sit down and write a letter to someone. I was a boarding school girl and so this was an important ritual of school life. Indeed for many years, I think Basildon Bond was my bestie. And Parker was the pal who knew all my most private thoughts.

And so, in giving up Facebook, I made one small vow: that I was going to try and start writing letters again.

I have made a few forays into pen and ink of late. I was missing one close friend who lives abroad and with whom I used to have regular messaging sessions late into the night on FB. And so I took time out to write her a proper letter. The poor woman must have had to give up a whole evening reading what turned out to be a veritable missive, as years of pent-up pen action were finally released. But she seemed chuffed enough and took the time to write a heartfelt reply.

Then a couple of bereavement letters to people whose losses I heard about late in the day because I wasn’t switched on to their “timelines”. And one to a friend who is travelling the world and who, rather inspiringly, has given out a series of mailbox addresses. How vintage.

I am craving a response on a good old fashioned aerogramme, of course, which I'm on a mission to revive, by the way. Younger readers may have to Google that one.

It’s not just the letter writing that gives such pleasure, of course. There is also that warm feeling you get when you get receive one. And in my precious box there are two piles that stand out. The proverbial love letters wrapped up in ribbon, from my husband, now sadly an ex, but just about long enough gone for me to have the courage to dig them out, read and weep. Thankfully happier tears now, as the words bring back good times, forever preserved in pen and ink.

And yes I know that ink does fade, but not as quickly as a Snapchat message.

The other big pile of letters is from my late father. He was the main source of my love of letters, writing to me at school from an eclectic array of places as he lived a life of otherwise estrangement, divorced from my mother and with a propensity for disappearing into the mountains with nothing but a love of hiking, a pen, paper and a bottle of something strong to release his ever-complex thoughts. I now treasure these often spirit-sodden words like nothing else.

They are the only relationship I had with him, really. And, when he died, I found a large envelope in his home, crammed with letters I had sent him over the years, a jigsaw puzzle of memories I am still to piece together.

Letter writing isn’t all about nostalgia for me, however. They have a practical use too. When one of my sons was learning to write, he really battled with it. Homework time was becoming more and more fraught, and so I tried desperately to think of a way to help him.

Eventually, a dear friend who lives in Scotland came up with a wonderful idea. He decided to write my son a postcard every day for a month, and asked him to send one back every day too. My son loved the cards popping through the letter box every day, and never hesitated once to write a newsy reply. And he has kept them all to this day, over a decade later.

My favourite memory of the positive impacts of letters, however, is from a writing workshop way back in my 20s. The teacher asked us to write the letter we had always wanted to write but never dared. We didn’t have to post it, just write it. I remember watching this woman crying and crying as the words poured out on to paper. At the end, she was brave enough to share that she had written to her mother. The teacher asked if she would consider posting it and she said she couldn’t, because her mother had just died a couple of weeks previously. Calmly, and with great sensitivity, the teacher said, “Well, what I would like you to do now is write the letter you think your mother would have written in reply.” Which she did.

And I will never forget how she left the class. Her emotions visibly spent, but a smile on her face that said it had enabled her to put a ghost to rest.

An expression no emoticon will ever manage to capture.