LOCKDOWN letters to warm heart your
There’s never been a better time to receive an old-fashioned letter. Now two relatives of the Duchess of Cornwall have inspired children to become pen pals with care home residents. And it’s proof that the magic of the handwritten note still endures...
Fourteen-year-old otis Irwin has a new friend. a pen friend, really. His name is John Brooks, and so far otis has learned that John is 92, worked for the raF as an aircraft engineer, then as an architect, and taught himself to play the piano.
John lives in a care home just a few miles from otis’s house and likes to entertain staff there with his playing.
His sister also has a new friend. Violet, 11, has been exchanging letters — yes, oldfashioned letters — with a lady called Sandra tait, who lives in the same care home as John. Sandra is 78, married the love of her life at 16, and is missing her daughter terribly at the moment.
Charming as these notes, carefully written in a childish hand, are, Sandra has admitted to being a little confused by the contents of some of Violet’s letters.
‘I didn’t police her as she was writing them,’ laughs Violet’s mum alice. ‘So there are a few spelling mistakes in there. It was also quite confusing because she talked about her dog, who is called rabbit.’
that these pen pals, and total strangers, found each other just a few weeks ago is a heartwarming — and most unexpected — outcome of the coronavirus crisis.
But the idea was alice’s. letter writing has always played an important role in the 42-year-old artist’s family.
Her grandfather was Major Bruce Shand (and yes, her aunt Camilla is indeed that Camilla, the duchess of Cornwall, the older sister of alice’s mother annabel elliot), a keen correspondent who wrote endlessly to his grandchildren when they were at boarding school.
She would dutifully reply, ‘complete with my own spelling mistakes. I still have terrible handwriting, like a five-year-old’s’. She has continued to write letters to family members, the duchess included, ever since and encourages her own children to thank her elders formally for Christmas presents.
However, like most of us, she had accepted that her offspring were members of the email generation, and would not put pen to paper routinely, or for fun, and certainly not to strangers.
THen came lockdown. their own family went into survival mode and, like so many families across the country, decided who would go where. alice’s cousin ayesha (her father was the late writer and conservationist Mark Shand, Camilla’s younger brother, who died in 2014) dashed from london to be with alice and her children in Wiltshire for the duration, not wanting to be on her own at such a time.
‘I’d normally spend Christmas with them, or summer holidays, but when it became clear that lockdown was coming, I realised I wanted to be with al and the kids,’ she says.
‘I’m pretty close to my father’s family and it was the anniversary of his death coming up. I wanted to spend it with his family, and it’s been an amazing opportunity to do that, to play board games, have meals together, all the things maybe you don’t have time to do normally.’
Idyllic, yes, and they admit they are the lucky ones, with a large garden and a house big enough to accommodate everyone. even though they are a higher-profile family than most, they still fell into familiar patterns, using the video app Zoom to keep in touch with the extended family.
But all their thoughts were of the unfolding situation — particularly how it was affecting elderly people in the neighbourhood. ‘I was watching the news and reading about this awful situation in our care homes, and I felt so helpless,’ alice admits. ‘I wanted to let the people in our local one know I was thinking about them.
‘at the same time, otis and Violet were home-schooling, and I was trying to think of activities for them to do. the two things came together and I started wondering if they could write to the residents.
I did send a letter myself, wondering if I could write to individuals, but I got a reply saying that was very kind but because of data protection it was impossible.’ Project thwarted? not quite. ‘I still thought there was merit in it, so I got the children to write anyway, but they addressed their letters to My dear new Friend — the idea being that if any of the care home residents wanted to write to them, they could.’ and? Bingo! two of the residents of the care home, in Warminster, were only too delighted to respond. ever since, letters have been winging their way back and forth. now, the siblings feel they have new friends — and the oaPs are delighted, too. ‘John’s face lights up every time he gets a letter,’ says Claire Williams, 45, a senior care assistant at the home. ‘He’s tickled pink that anyone would take time out to write to him, and that it’s someone as young as otis is a bonus. He doesn’t have grandchildren and he didn’t have much contact with young people even before this crisis. now, of course, there is none.’
and Sandra says she was over the moon to hear from a complete stranger, and was delighted when Violet wanted them to be friends.
‘I never thought a little girl who does not know me would pick me of all people,’ she says.
‘In her first letter, she talked about her two dogs. this was the start of sending and receiving letters about animals and pets. When I mentioned the cats we have here she did a lovely drawing, which brought tears to my eyes.
‘She put a lot of time and energy into it — just for me. the whole experience has cheered me up endlessly. I can’t believe all this has happened to me.’
What began as a simple correspondence, though, has turned into so much more. When alice told friends about her children’s new pen pals on social media, they decided to send their own letters to care homes near them.
the hashtag #mydearnewfriend was born — ayesha’s idea — and it took off. the two cousins turned their personal venture into a much more public one, and were astonished at how much support poured in. now, families and teachers all over the country are encouraging their children and pupils to get involved.
their royal relative is backing the cousins’ fast-expanding project. ‘She’s hugely supportive, and thinks it’s a great idea,’ says ayesha of Camilla. there are other royal supporters, too. ayesha works with Princess eugenie at the Hauser & Wirth art Gallery in Mayfair. She has declared the project ‘wonderful’.
ayesha, 25, admits the letterwriting habit almost passed her by but she has now been watching her niece and nephew scribbling
away, and has been tempted to get her own writing pad out.
‘I wouldn’t have had the same volume of letters from my grandfather as Alice would have had because I was so much younger when he died, but I do remember treasuring them. We all do with letters, don’t we? You don’t throw letters away.’
Ayesha lost her father suddenly in 2014 when he suffered a head injury after a fall. She says that the letters she received immediately afterwards from family and friends continue to offer comfort even today. ‘They are things you reread. I know that after Dad died, so many people wrote to me, and those letters are precious.’
The letters between Camilla’s great-niece and nephew and their older pen pals are as charming as they come — and haphazard in content. The ones from Violet are full of colourful drawings, mostly of her pets. Indeed, the pets are clearly the priority when it comes to the words, too. The first letter explains that Violet’s two ‘male’ guinea pigs produced some baby guinea pigs, so it turned out that one of them was female. In return, Sandra talks about the care home’s cat, Blacky, and reveals she likes quizzes and music, and belongs to a reading group.
Otis’s neatly written letters show evidence of a questioning mind (not least a young mind who is learning about the war in history lessons — something John is well able to lend a hand with) and a love of reading.
whIle John’s letters have arrived clearly written by different hands, there is a poignant reason for that. For John has dementia and finds it difficult to write at length himself.
Instead, he dictates his letters to the care home’s staff.
As the scheme gains momentum, more and more letters are travelling across the country.
‘We heard from a teacher who got her entire class to write,’ says Alice. ‘And so many parents have got involved, too. It taps into this frustration so many of us parents have that our children are just spending too much time on their devices.
‘This is a way of getting them to just look up from them, and to express themselves.
‘We are all so isolated at the moment — emotionally as well as physically. It’s about making a very simple human connection.’
The pen-pal project has been applauded by the National literacy Trust, whose own research has looked at the role old-fashioned letter-writing can play in boosting our children’s skills and well-being.
Fiona evans, director of school programmes, says: ‘My Dear New Friend will enable new intergenerational friendships to blossom, bringing the joy of children’s letters to those in care homes and helping members of the community to connect and support each other at this difficult time.’
Charlotte Kennedy, an activities coordinator at John and Sandra’s care home, says all the residents were talking endlessly about their new friends.
She adds: ‘Generational bonding is amazing and these days we just don’t get as much of it because the younger generation are using social networking — not oldfashioned pen and paper.
‘For our older residents someone actually taking the time to write to them is amazing. It really has been quite special watching them open the letters, and both John and Sandra couldn’t wait to write back. Quite a bond has developed.’
Alice agrees, saying: ‘The more the children find out about John and Sandra, the more questions they have. I think it can only benefit both sides, and I really hope we can meet them one day soon.
‘If one good thing can come out of all this, it will be these sorts of friendships, and all you need to get them started is a pen, a piece of paper and a stamp.’