The Farmer & His Wife
ANNE, like me, is impetuous. One night when we should have been tidying up, Anne suddenly decided to write to her cousins, Arnold and Betty.
She wrote telling them about the weather on the Riggin, and as they are farmers, too, she mentioned the price of bullocks.
Oh, yes, they did reply – eventually!
And give them their due, they both wrote to us although, being careful sorts, put both replies in the same envelope.
Betty’s was a very interesting three pages, full of news and amusing remarks. Arnold’s note was all about stock prices and milk quotas.
Anne has always been the scribe in the household, both here on the Riggin and when she lived at home.
I can well remember an Irishman called Jimmy coming over in a cattle boat every year to help on her dad’s farm.
The first thing he asked was for Anne to write his wife in Ballingary to say he had arrived safely. He told her what to say but she added bits.
His dear wife couldn’t read so she had to take it to someone to read it out to her.
We had been married a few years and Anne had gone to fasten up her hens for the night when the phone rang. Her brother’s voice came over the wire.
He asked me to tell Anne that an elderly neighbour of theirs had died and would she write a letter of sympathy to the family. I’m afraid I was blunt. “Why don’t you write one yourself?” I asked.
I don’t think he ever forgave me, but I couldn’t see why they should still rely on Anne for such things when she had left home.
I don’t know where she acquired the art, but Anne can write the most beautiful letters, despite the fact she only went to the village school.
Our daughter has a computer which types letters, but you don’t post them. Oh, no, that’s a thing of the past. You press more buttons and send it to someone who can read it right away. Sometimes you even get a reply in five minutes!
I’m out of my depth. We still post letters on the Riggin, I’m relieved to say. And we still enjoy receiving them, too! ■
John Taylor extols the lost art of letter writing.