Herons Go Postal – 14 November 2025

This week’s newsletter is not intended as a paean to the postman on whom I definitely do not have a crush. That blush you observe as a bookseller sees him making his majestic way down Regent Street is a quite normal reaction to the excitement of receiving letters, publishers’ catalogues and advance copies of books.

Having said that, I have been reading The Postal Paths by Alan Cleaver in which the author sets out to research and walk the paths created by rural postal workers when they used to deliver on foot to the most remote places.

The book is sweet and kind and full of admirable characters who were known to everyone on their route and who in turn connected sprawling communities, including the one-legged veteran who nevertheless walked miles each day to make his deliveries in all weathers and over all terrains and the blind postman who managed the same. A lonely man living in the middle of nowhere sends himself a letter so that he might see another person. I have a soft spot for the postman who, asked what he did with his holiday, answered that since it was sunny he accompanied the person who was covering for him – a whole different experience going for that walk in the sun whilst someone else carried the heavy bag.

It is approaching the time of year when many who do not usually write letters think about sending cards. But how much more enjoyable to receive a properly penned letter from a committed writer, rather than a hasty card, perhaps one among many to be ticked off on an arduous list?

I have been dipping into PG Wodehouse’s letters, edited by Sophie Ratcliffe. I am particularly enjoying his letters to Evelyn Waugh, Arthur Conan Doyle and to his adopted daughter, Leonora, aka ‘my darling angel Snorkles’, ‘precious Snorklet’ or ‘Snorky.’ These are full of details of his writing as well keeping Snorkles apprised of major life events: ‘Great excitement last night. Mummie came into my room at half-past two and woke me out of the dreamless to say that mice had been snootering her,’ and ‘I have got four new freckles on the top of my head. Where will this end? I think I shall buy a parasol.’  

There are moving details too – Wodehouse was in a prisoner-of-war camp in 1940 – among the rugby updates and the insights into possible inspirations for Bertie Wooster’s formidable aunts. It always feels a little cheeky reading someone else’s letters. Neither the postman nor Aunt Agatha would condone it, which makes this all the more enjoyable.

Malik Al Nasir’s Letters to Gil is really one stirring thank you letter to Gil Scott-Heron, a memoir about the awful abuse the author suffered in the care system and how a meeting with the artist backstage after a concert saved his life. Gil Scott-Heron gave him a job, became a father figure and, realising that the system had provided no education, encouraged Malik to learn to read and write without being ashamed of needing to do so as an adult.

His personal experience of growing up in Liverpool in the 1960s and being told repeatedly to ‘go home’ led to his PhD research and second book, Searching for My Slave Roots: From Guyana’s Sugar Plantations to Cambridge, studying his ancestors’ history and the rôle of the English merchants Sandbach Tinne & Co in enslaving Africans. On 19 November, we are supporting an event organised by the University of Bristol with Malik and hope you’ll join us for a fascinating discussion.

The postal rounds are truly inspiring in Marcel’s Parcels by Kate Hindley, a beautifully illustrated board book in which the ever-busy Marcel delivers all sorts of parcels to the residents of Treacle Street. The last package seems best of all and is addressed to the post-elephant himself…

An epistle sent to a cottage in the middle of nowhere had me in tears (good ones) this week. In Fox and the Mystery Letter by Alex G Griffiths, Fox receives a letter signed ‘From an Old Friend’ which begins a series of puzzles taking him on a long journey to find two things for which he had not realised he was longing. One is a scarf he lost years before. And the other? Well, get ready to weep.

Other stories of foxes journeying north liable to cause deep emotion include Fox Goes North by Jeremy Strong, a story about a group of animal friends longing to see the Northern Lights, travelling in a house on wheels pulled by a moose, steered by a bear, with navigation provided by a toucan with a magnetic beak. It is also a love letter to creating art in nature. And to bread.  

Hopefully all of these might encourage readers to become letter-writers, if not already. I have been following the work of The Sunday Letter Project, a simple pledge to write a letter each Sunday, and Heron Books is hoping to get involved – look out for details soon. My own resolution to send more letters is nothing to do with the hope of receiving some in return, delivered by that charming postman.

In the novel Family Happiness by Laurie Colwin a letter goes unanswered, a bundle of letters goes unsent but one letter is delivered. When it comes the reader will stop with Polly on the other side of the room, recognising the handwriting from a distance, longing for and shying away from what it must surely say and unable to breathe with her for the next few days until she meets its sender.

Polly is the daughter of Wendy and Henry Solo-Miller, the sister of Paul and Henry Jr, the wife of Henry Demarest, the mother of two children not called Henry, which is fortunate since her brother is about to bring his own Henry into the world. This is all quite proper. Polly fulfils her rôles perfectly, including those at work but nobody cares to ask about that for family is the appropriate full-time job. No-one would believe that marvellous Polly, trained to behave exactly as is fitting, is in love with another man, not called Henry. It is so unlikely that she hardly believes it. If you are one of the bereft after finishing Heart the Lover*, Family Happiness is, as it were, for you.

May your weekend afford the time to write a letter,**
Lizzie

* Uninitiated please see the newsletter of 24 October.

** For excuses for not doing so sooner, please refer to PG Wodehouse: ‘I’ve been feeling an awful worm not having written to you as I said I would, but really the fevered rush of life has been such down here that I haven’t had a moment, especially as we have not yet been able to get a maid, and have had to do all the house-work ourselves since we arrived! Golly, I don’t know what they mean by saying the country is dull. It’s one long round of excitement. Yesterday I was bitten by a dog!’