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From The Times
August 8, 2009

The moment

Lauren Vanderkar

Buying the stamps, rushing to make the last post, waiting days for a response… who would bother, in this the era of texts, e-mails and Twitter, to hand-write a letter? A fair few of us, it seems. The Royal Mail processed 135 million postcards last year, 30 million more than in 2005. Elsewhere, combining old with new, websites such as www.postcrossing.com are organising postcard exchanges for letter-writing fanatics. You sign up and receive cards from people all over the world. Annette Sharpe, managing director of online stationer Papernation (www.papernation.co.uk), says people are rediscovering simple pleasures: “Text messages look the same whether they’re from your best friend or your phone company.” Meanwhile, elite London stationer Smythson created a range of correspondence cards earlier this year that sold out in days. Even on holiday, we are making an effort. Emma Woolley at Smythson says finding a letter among the bills and junk mail is captivating: “There’s a luxury to receiving handwritten letters. It brings joy to the recipient. People are starting to remember that.” Lauren Vanderkar

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