THE NAKED CITY: THE DEATH OF THE LETTER
As letter boxes throughout the country are taken over by snails and Australia Post reports a loss of $189.7m in the delivery of letters in just the first half of 2022-23, it seems the letter itself is in danger of becoming extinct. Once a staple of human communication and at times literary expression the humble letter as we once knew it could well disappear forever.
We are talking something handwritten, typed or printed on paper, stuck in an envelope and with a stamp affixed on the front. Remember those? It was once a daily ritual to hear the postman’s whistle, often greet the postie outside your residence and receive a welcome bundle of assorted letters. Sure there were bills, government notices and junk mail but there were also birthday and Christmas cards, wedding invitations and photos from abroad – and best of all those heartfelt messages from a relative, a lover or a pen pal overseas.
Whilst the parcel delivery side of Australian Post flourishes due to rapidly expanding online sales, the delivery of actual letters has slumped to the point where many services have been reduced to a few days a week. Now the Government is giving consideration to stripping that home delivery back even further. Australians just aren’t sending letters like they used to as emails and texting become the everyday epistles of the 21st century.
The once noble art of creative letter writing could well disappear forever, replaced by the crude, abbreviated neo babble of texting and colourless emails. Maybe it’s time to fight back and if everybody made a point of spending a measly $1.20 a week on a stamp and sending a letter, the postie would not disappear from our suburban streets and the snails might seek an alternative haunt to chew up the pizza coupons. Here are just a few suggestions that might keep the postie’s bag full, at least for the foreseeable future.
THE GENTLE HOAX: All Australians love a leg pull and back in the 1960s it was not uncommon for some unsuspecting suburbanite to receive a letter saying they had been appointed ‘nuclear warden’ for their particular street. The cold war was raging and with it a genuine fear of the A-Bomb so many fell for the honour and responsibility they had just been awarded. The letter instructed the warden to have six buckets of water permanently on hand to extinguish any fire in the case of a nuclear attack and a stockpile of canned soup and beans for the recovery.
THE CHAIN LETTER STING: Chain letters have now been declared illegal but were once a popular form of low scale pyramid extortion. They asked you to send money to the person on top of the list whilst adding yours to the bottom, with the promise that you would eventually receive hundreds if not thousands of cash filled envelopes. Why not just circulate them with a simple message of peace and love – although if you really wanted you could add ‘donations gratefully received’.
THE RECYCLEABLE GREETING CARD: Older readers might remember the days when the average mantlepiece was not big enough to display the multitude of Christmas cards you received and you reverted to hooking them onto your venetians to accommodate the yuletide goodwill. Let’s start sending cards again, for Christmas, for birthdays and for just about anything Hallmark has in their catalogue. The trick would be to write the message in a soft pencil that could be easily erased. The card could then be recycled numerous times with the law of averages suggesting you might eventually get your original purchase back in the mail.
And finally:
THE LETTER TO YOURSELF: You neighbours are still getting letters and their dogs are still threatening to rip the poor old postie apart. You feel horribly left out and isolated as you haven’t had a delivery for ages. Why not write yourself one, say something sweet and complimentary and smile at your nosey neighbours as you retrieve it from your letter box. Even better, mark it ‘Return To Sender’ and drop it in the nearest mail box. It will arrive back a few days later and you could well keep repeating the process until Australia Post wakes up. It’s the letter that keeps on giving!
