How letter writing is bringing hope
Up and down the country, beautifully handwritten letters are landing on doormats. The sender of these letters has never met the recipient, nor do they know anything about them, except that they’re living with cancer. But in just a few pages, their thoughtful letter has the power to brighten up the day of the person receiving it and let them know that even in the toughest of times, someone is thinking of them.
This is From Me to You, a charity that harnesses the unique joy of receiving a letter to help enrich the life of someone with cancer.
It all started when Brian Greenley was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2010.
‘Letter writing changed mine and Brian’s life… We now just want to help the power of words change the lives of others’
While friends and family rallied to help, it was an acquaintance he’d only met a handful of times, Alison Hitchcock, whose offer of help surprised him most – she promised to start writing him letters.
“I wasn’t someone who wrote letters at all,” says Alison, “but I felt it was something I could do to cheer Brian up without being too imposing.”
So for the next two weeks Alison started jotting down events in her life, snippets of conversations she’d overheard in cafés and any other observations she thought Brian might find amusing. “I didn’t want to talk about the cancer because I didn’t know what to say and everyone’s experience of it is so unique. I just wanted the letter to be a positive distraction for him.”
And when that first letter landed on Brian’s doormat, he was over the moon. “It was a really nice feeling to think Alison had taken the time to write,” says Brian.
From that first letter, over the next two years hundreds more followed as Alison became a constant in Brian’s journey through cancer, making him smile in even the hardest moments when his cancer moved to stage 4. “I started saving up the letters to take to my treatments as they made me
feel like Alison was there with me,” says Brian. “That was nice because I tended to push people away when I got cancer for fear of making them feel awkward and I didn’t feel like socialising. But because her letters weren’t intrusive, it meant I could engage with them whenever I wanted to.”
By the time Brian got the wonderful news he was cancer free four years after diagnosis, he and Alison were the best of friends. In the meantime, the letters had given Alison such a love of writing, she gave up her job in the City to start a new career in writing. And it was through her new writing website that she received a message from someone who’d heard about her letters to Brian and asked if he could get some tips on how to do the same for someone he knew with cancer.
This gave Alison a
lightbulb moment, realising how many people could benefit from letter writing. She’d read research about how often people with cancer experience loneliness and isolation which can lead to depression – and thought receiving letters could really help prevent this.
Alison and Brian began the charity From Me to You, encouraging people to support a loved one with cancer by writing letters.
As they shared advice on how to write, they realised many people wanted to reach out but didn’t necessarily have a loved one with cancer to write to. The idea of Donate a Letter was born, where letter writers are matched with someone with cancer. It was a great success and to date more than 9,000 letters have been sent, often handed out by nurses or other charities to those who would most benefit from a kind word.
“We encourage writers to write about their lives, whether that’s the weather, their childhood memories, their pets or what they can see out of their windows, not the cancer,” says Alison. “Overwhelmingly the recipients say the thought someone has taken the time to write, buy a stamp and post it is incredibly touching,” says Alison. “Some letters make them laugh, some make them cry, but mainly it just makes them feel ‘normal’ again for a short while.”
As for the writers, Alison says so many fall in love with the art of letter writing they become prolific correspondents. “Some writers are involved because they wish they’d have received a letter when they had cancer,” says Alison. “For others, they just want to do something kind.” Now Alison and Brian are hoping to get the funds to grow the charity even more, hoping to one day broaden their reach to send letters to people affected by other physical and mental illnesses.
“Letter writing changed mine and Brian’s life,” says Alison. “We now just want to help the power of words change the lives of others.”
■ If you’d like to donate a letter, visit www.frommetoyouletters.co.uk to find out what to write and where to send your letter. You can also send a letter of enquiry, expressing your interest in being involved to: Donate a letter, PO Box 71038, London, W4 9HD and someone at the charity will respond with all the information you need.