The Poignancy of Covid Separations...by Sheila Claydon

 

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This is about children. They feature a lot in my romances because they feature a lot in my life in the form of grandchildren and their friends. Animals also feature ditto. Authors are always told to write about the things they know, so I do...at least to some extent. And certainly as far as children are concerned. 

All of my granddaughters love books and all of them enjoy writing stories and poems, many of which give the family pleasure as they note the progress being made and the imagination being shared. Just occasionally, however, things become a little more poignant, none more than this letter from my 6 year old granddaughter who lives in Hong Kong. She and her parents were due to spend 6 weeks with us in the summer of 2020 but Covid put paid to that as they weren't allowed to leave Hong Kong. So now we continue, as we always have, to talk on Skype and to share thoughts on a WhatsApp Family Chat. This includes everyone in the immediate UK family. 

Due to the time difference we often wake up in the morning to messages and photos that have been sent while we were asleep and this is what arrived last week. 

Given that we are way past Christmas we are taking the greeting as it is intended. We also love the idiosyncratic spellings, the pink pen and the various stickers. The message, sent without any prompting from her parents, is heartrending though. In our UK family we have dogs, cats and a horse, some of which she has already met, and all of whom she has seen on Skype. A Hong Kong high-rise is not the place for pets, however, so she is living for the day when she can play with them all and ride the horse on a leading rein, as she was expecting to do last summer.

Having said that she is managing pretty well on Skype in the interim. She's been known to send her eldest cousin messages during a university lecture and call us up while we are out walking the dog and take the walk through the fields with us. We also manage to play games like UNO or Chess online after a fashion, read books or write stories, and, if they are with her, be introduced to many of her little friends.  It's amazing what can be achieved with technology and we consider ourselves very lucky to be able to maintain such a close relationship across the miles. It doesn't make up for that poignant little letter though. Nothing will.

On a lighter note, the middle granddaughter is known for her sense of humour and dry wit. These came into play this week when, to her disgust, she was told that because it was International Book Day she had to dress up as a character from a book she liked. At 14, she thought the whole thing was ridiculous in  the way only a teenager can, especially as lessons were still online! She is, however, a very dutiful student, so when the day came she chose Harry Potter as her character. She then mentally donned his invisibility cloak by keeping her camera turned off during her online English lesson. I don't know what costumes her classmates came up with but what I do know is that she won first prize. Obviously her English teacher has a sense of humour too. It has kept the whole family laughing all week. 

Now she is back in the classroom and so is our granddaughter in Hong Kong, and hopefully it won't be too long before we can all meet up again. In the meantime I have another book to write...children will feature!!

It's That Time Again by Victoria Chatham

 

AVAILABLE HERE

Dear Reader, 

So much has changed in our world this year, but one thing that hasn't is the will to connect with friends and family for Christmas.

Hey, you might think. It's still a month away. That's all well and good, but with me in one country and many of the aforementioned friends and family in other countries, I need to have my Christmas cards and letters prepared well in advance and this year I would like to include you.

My usual Christmas letter is a bit like the old 'what I did in my summer holidays' exercise in school. It is a round up of the highlights of my year for those with whom I am not in regular contact. I try to personalize each letter, to acknowledge each individual for who they are and what they mean to me. 

Do you still get letters? Real, honest-to-goodness letters? I love receiving them even if many of them are no longer handwritten. I remember watching my mother's handwriting deteriorate over the years. Then receiving cards written in another hand and simply signed 'Eve' once she slid into the grip of Altzheimer's. My handwriting is no longer as legible as it once was after a page or two, so now I type to save the recipient the effort of having to decipher the loops and swirls that spread like cobwebs across a page.

This year has been the maddest of mad years, but there is still so much to appreciate and enjoy. I was lucky enough to have managed to get away to Mexico before the lockdown and have the memories of fun in the sun, tequila tasting and the company of friends. Once back home, I had my own writing to come back to but kept up my social activities where I could. I walked and rode horses during the summer, found places to go where I either hadn't been for a long time or never been before. I had the choice of writing or reading, or some of each and discovered many new authors. My to-be-read list has grown exponentially. 

The Skype and Zoom platforms have enabled me to keep in touch with writer friends, to have taken workshops and webinars with my own writing group and others. In a year that could have been written-off as abysmal I have strengthened friendships, shared experiences, and learnt so much. I am rounding up my year participating in National Novel Writing Month, something I tried once before and failed miserably! This time I focused on the target and know I'm going to make it.

So how was your year? Haveyou  managed to stay in touch with friends and family? Have you been able to rise above the doom and gloom and sense that this too shall pass? What is your hope for next year and beyond? Whatever it is, be kind to yourself and others.

I wish you all the compliments of the Season and a happy, healthy New Year.

All the best, Victoria

Is letter writing redundant? by Priscilla Brown

 

Regretfully, no characters in these contemporary romances write personal letters.

 In future stories, maybe I should make sure they do!

https://bookswelove/net/authors/brown-priscilla-romance

Here, I am considering personal letters, not business or formal communications. In today's time-poor society (or perceived as such)  it's quicker and easier to phone, text, email or message. And there are times and situations where immediacy is essential.But isn't there something anticipatory about receiving a hand-addressed envelope? Open it, find a sheet of paper filled with handwriting - you know the writer has taken the time and effort to think of you.

Checking in my local newsagency I found several differently designed quality writing pads with matching envelopes, and boxed compendiums of attractive paper and envelopes. I asked the manager how the items sold. She told me that while the pads and envelopes on the whole were fairly slow sellers, those pads clearly designed for a child's use do sell, hopefully for the child to write thank you letters, and indicating that parents encourage children to write; others were bought mostly by women. The compendiums are popular especially close to Christmas, she assumes for gifts. And for writing thank you letters!

 So, other than thank you, why write? A few thoughts...


- reminisce on a good time you've had together
- someone you know, or sense, is in trouble, lonely, needs encouragement
- you've lost touch, want to repair a friendship
- forge a friendship with someone you know only casually
- take time to think things through, or apologise, clarifying comments that may be misunderstood in person or on the phone
- introduce a topic of mutual interest, leading to an epistolary conversation

- invite the recipient into the sender's world with descriptions of experiences, feelings, concerns
- recommend with details a book or movie
- with family, share thoughts and information which can be saved for future generations

Further to this, a nearby family is having a house built on previously vacant land. They are writing notes on their current lives to be dated, sealed in non-rusting container, and buried in what will become the garden. The seven-year-old wrote about his school; his four-year-old brother who could write his name dictated to the older child to write about his swimming lessons; for their two-year-old sister, Mr7 wrote her name, age and added kisses. Each parent will write notes to future parents.

Personalised and preferably handwritten letters are social currency with more of a human connection than is possible via technology. I believe such letter writing will not become redundant as long as we acknowledge a fundamental need to keep in touch on a deeper level.

As I cannot write personally to each of you, please imagine that I have handwritten (yes, you can read my writing!) on quality white writing paper using a blue pen, neatly folded into a matching envelope,  a letter bringing all good wishes for 2020. 

May the year be kind to you. And, of course, with lots of wonderful reading. 

Priscilla

 https://priscillabrownauthor.com

THE MAN ON THE TEN DOLLAR BILL

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I used to occasionally ask the clerk, when I handed them a ten, if they knew whose picture that was. Mostly, the answer was “some president.”  If there was no one waiting, I’d give a short history lesson by saying, “No, this is Alexander Hamilton, first secretary of the Treasury. If he hadn’t done his job, by figuring out how to pay off the Revolutionary War debt and balance the budget, there wouldn’t be a United States today.” While this is a gloss of all his myriad accomplishments during the few short years he held the Secretary’s office, I’d hope it would make an impression. Now, because Hamilton is about to be removed from the $10 by a less illustrious successor at Treasury, the people who know their American History—and their Hamilton--are surprised and saddened

Timothy Geithner as well as other veterans and current occupants of high office have come to Hamilton’s defense. Ben Bernanke said of Hamilton "…without doubt, the best and most foresighted economic policymaker in U.S. history." Editorial writers for the New York Times, US Today, WSJ, and noted historians, like Ron Chernow, whose biography of Hamilton is now considered the definitive work on his high-powered subject, have also registered their thoughts upon the matter.

But I’m a mere fiction writer, and to me there’s always been more to Hamilton than sterling service to his adopted country. Wanting to connect fully with his personal life, I discovered a wealth of primary source in the form of letters.  Fortunately, Elizabeth, his devoted wife, pursued and collected these in her long years of life after her husband's death. In these private communications, I was allowed a glimpse of the man behind the myth, his masks, his follies, instances of teasing and tenderness. Letters allow us, all these years later, to form an idea of what he was like. 

 I’ll start my examples with a political slur—on Hamilton and the American army—which was published in Rivington’s Tory Gazette in 1779, when he was George Washington’s most effective aide de camp. It evokes a picture of a bold, cheeky young man:

“Mrs. Washington has a mottled orange tom cat (which she calls in a complimentary way, ‘Hamilton’) with thirteen stripes around the tail and its flaunting suggested to congress the thirteen stripes for the flag.”

In his youth, among his male friends, Hamilton plays the worldly rake. Here are excerpts from a letter sent to a fellow ADC and dear friend, John Laurens, during the Revolution, a joking discussion of his requirements for a wife:  

“She must be young, handsome (I lay most stress upon a good shape), sensible ( a little learning will do)…of some good nature…as to religion, a moderate stock will satisfy me. She must believe in God and hate a saint. But as to fortune, the larger stock of that the better…though I run no risk of going to purgatory for my avarice, yet as money is an essential ingredient to happiness in this world…it must needs be that my wife, if I get one, bring at least sufficency to administer to her own extravagancies…You will hear of many competitors for most of the qualifications required who will be glad to become candidates for such a prize as I am…(and) mind you do justice to the length of my nose…”

Daily life was far different before the advent of phones and rapid travel. Letters illuminate the hardships and stresses that might devolve upon an 18^th Century family. Hamilton was often away from home, either riding the circuit as a lawyer, or while serving in some distant public body. Sometimes, his wife and children were in Albany with her Schuyler parents to escape the oppressive, fever-ridden city summers of Philadelphia and New York. Often, as a result of his indefatigable public life, (in the example below, during a term in the Continental Congress,) the family was separated. Here's a particularly anxious letter from a young husband to his wife:

“…I have borne your absence with patience ‘till about a week since, but the period we fixed for our reunion being come I can no longer reconcile myself. Every hour in the day I feel a severe pang on this account and half my nights are sleepless. Come my charmer and relieve me. Bring my darling boy to my bosom. Adieu Heaven bless you and speedily restore you to your fond husband…”

“I wrote to you my beloved Betsy by the last post…I count upon setting out to see you in four days; but I shall not be without apprehensions of being detained ‘till I have begun my journey…at this time, (attendance in) the House is thin…I give you joy my angel of the happy conclusion of the important work in which your country has been engaged. Now in a very short time I hope we shall be happily settled in New York.”

Many letters show concern about the ill health of their children. Originally, Hamilton had come to America to study medicine, and a continuing interest in the subject is evident throughout his life.

“The Secretary of the Treasury presents his respects to the president. The state of health of his little son and the situation of Mrs. Hamilton in consequence of it oblige him to request the present to excuse him from attending the interview with the Indians today and also to ask the President’s permission to make an excursion into the country for a few days to try the effect of exercise and change of air upon the child…”  To George Washington, July 11, 1794

Here, Hamilton, recently returned to the Capitol, writes to Elizabeth, absent in Albany with her younger children, one seriously ill, on Aug. 17, 1794:

“My Beloved Eliza… I am happy to inform you that the precious little ones we left behind are well… My heart trembles whenever I open a letter from you.” (Their youngest, John Church, had several strange "cures” tried upon his little body that summer, some suggested by his anxious father and others by attending physicians.) “The experiment of the pink root alarms, but I continue to place my hope in heaven…Alas, my beloved Johnny--what shall I hear of you! This question makes my heart sink….” 

“…If his fever should appear likely to prove obstinate, urge the Physician to consider well the propriety of trying the cold bath…”

And this last, a recollection by this same "Johnny," written down many years later: 

"...In the morning, early, he awakened me. Taking my hands in his palms, all four hands extended , he told me to repeat the Lord's Prayer. Seventy years have passed over my head, and I have forgotten many things, but not that tender expression when he stood looking at me...nor the prayer we made together the morning just before the duel..."

Whatever his other failings, Hamilton was a man who loved his family. As a writer particularly interested in the "little domestic world," as experienced in the past, this made him particularly fascinating to me.

~Juliet Waldron

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See my other historical novels at:

http://bookswelove.net/authors/waldron-Juliet