I sat down with Lynda on Australia Day and watched the 6 x hour SBS documentary, The First Australians for the second time since its release about 10 years ago. It’s the definitive documentary of our true history put together objectively using facts, by a dozen history professors of all races, Indigenous Australians, White Australians and British. Why it’s not mandatory for all Australians to see is beyond me. It doesn’t divide us, it just educates and heals. If you’re like me and taught a history of Australia that goes something like, “Captain Cook arrived at Botany Bay, planted a flag and the locals were rapt”, you will benefit enormously from this brilliant series.
Anyway, one of the interesting things we had forgotten were the communication challenges of the day. For all the ill’s that the British brought to the new colony, there were some learned fellows that thankfully documented what actually happened. Also our museums still have letters similar to the ones on the cover of this blog that not only capture the feelings of the new settlers but are beautifully written in penmanship that I dare say couldn’t be replicated today.
Just one problem writing letters in those days. It took 8 months on a ship to deliver it to the Motherland! In the documentary there are a number of times where letters are sent to the Crown requesting approval for certain projects, only to wait 18 months for a reply! And you reckon our councils are slow off the mark getting back to you about the building approval for that new patio?! Patience was of the essence in those days.
These days of course everything is so quick that we take it for granted. After 30 years of working for global companies I’ve had a career change and boy have I noticed the difference immediately. In terms of emails and phone calls it’s negligible or if I do get one it’s from someone I’m happy to hear from! I understand the need for speed and I was my own worst enemy in many ways putting work before family. However, in hindsight so much of the communication was “pulp” and unnecessary. Much of it was designed to please a boss or corporation rather than adding genuine value. It’s also highly impersonal and detached from the reality of a situation in many cases, opening it up for interpretation which is often wrong.
I can’t see letters making a comeback in global organisations, however there is still a big place for them in our everyday lives. Having joined the army as a 17 YO, I can’t tell you enough how much I looked forward to the mail arriving. My Mum was a prolific writer of them and she would stand at the kitchen sink with the bright WA light streaming in and punch out a letter a week to me whilst listening to her beloved ABC Radio. The letter would arrive, 2 x A4 pages long, and accompanied with a heap of clippings from the West Australian and local Kwinana paper, The Sound Advertiser. The clippings were an assortment of sport, local news and often stories of inspirational people overcoming adversity. The envelopes looked like giant blowfish, stuffed to the hilt and wrapped in sticky tape in order to survive the 3000km trip.
She also did the same for my younger brother Glen who left home at 16 and headed to the country to play footy and work. I get choked up now thinking of the love that was put into those letters to us. Mum left school at 14 and had 4 x kids by the time she was 26, whilst training as one of the nation’s top two distance runners (women were only allowed to run 800m in those days!). Her husband was a violent drunk, so she left and remarried my Dad, a widower from England who had 3 x kids. What became the Brady Bunch, soon became a nightmare when Glen and I popped out! She then fostered 2 x homeless juveniles after we left home. I think the secret to Mum’s ability to write letters of that calibre was her time management. Up at 4.30-5am every morning and household chores done before 9am including the washing which doubled as an alarm clock when the spin cycle took off like a Chinook Helicopter!
Mum running 1940
Me, Mum & Glen 1990
Receiving such quality reading encouraged me to repeat the favour, and I’m sure Mum and Dad appreciated it getting updates. The only other communication in those days was a public phone which at an army training base you had to queue up for with your pockets full of 20c pieces. I still have a lot of correspondence from those days and it’s so real and authentic. I decided years later when my ex-wife Tina was having our first child, Corrie in Fremantle that I would write a letter to her as I was waiting at the hospital. It was a diary leading up to the birth, then some post birth hysterics. Tina had been quite sick leading up to the birth, received an epidural and the baby’s heartrate had been irregular. As a result she had an emergency caesarean and after all the build- up, I was emotionally “wired’ out of my head! Our daughter was presented to me like a bottle of red, perfect, free of the trauma of the birth canal, opened her eyes and stared at me as if to say, “do something you doufus!”.
I ran over the road to a milk bar and bought the 2 x available newspapers, The West Australian and The Australian as a memento for her, then sat in the waiting area and finished the letter. I gave her the letter and the papers on her 15th birthday to an emotional scene which would have been completely different if I had typed or emailed it. The nice paper I chose, the quality pen used and the time taken to neatly write it, made all the difference. For reasons unbeknown to me, I didn’t write a letter for my second daughter Mia, and hasn’t she reminded me about it over the years! What I do these days is every birthday and Xmas I fill the cards with handwritten thoughts, although strangely enough they much prefer cash 🙂 !
In one of the first letters Mum sent me, she included a couple of “Today’s Texts” which are quotes from the Bible that were published every day in The West Australian. They were joined by 2 x gold safety pins that she said belonged to my Nanna who lived to 100. The safety pins were for good luck (hasn’t worked :)) and one of the texts had my Mum’s characteristic underlining to emphasise key words. It reads as follows:
Work hard and do not be lazy. Serve the Lord with a heart full of devotion. Let your hope keep you joyful, be patient in your troubles and pray at all times.
Mum wasn’t religious but she had a “thing” for the “Today’s Text”. She knew I wasn’t religious so I can only deduce that she underlined “pray” as a lack of faith in me! (Fingers crossed you’ll be ok son!) Anyway I’ve had these texts and the pins in a plastic envelope for 40 years and inside a number of different wallets over that time. All from a letter sent from a mother to her imbecile son on the other side of the country.
There’s nothing quite like receiving a handwritten letter but’s it’s even better creating one and seeing the recipient’s response. It’s far more impactful than an email or text, guaranteed to be put in a safe place for another viewing and not filed away or deleted. It just takes a bit of effort that is guaranteed to be rewarded in spades.
