If you have kids, or even just know some kids, you’ll most likely be aware that the environment in which they are growing up today doesn’t make it easy for them to get in to books, and by extension, writing. If you have the option of interacting with a full-colour, fun, dopamine-inducing gizmo, (with all your friends who also have one and are playing with it all the time) who would pick up a book? (And yes – this doesn’t just affect kids – this affects us too!)

Gone are the days when books were one of the few escapes for kids. That, and making dens outside and exploring the stream as far as it would go (which is what we did).

My brothers and sister and I visited the local library once a week, and we all took out the maximum number of books, and repeated this every week, even when we went on holiday. My sister read so fast that I remember, on one long coach journey to somewhere, that we tested her to make sure she wasn’t bluffing (and she wasn’t!). Books were a staple of my childhood, and I have fond memories of reading Enid Blyton under the covers with a torch after lights-out.

And it was the same with letters too. By the time I was in my teens, I had pen-friends that I regularly corresponded with in Poland (whom I later visited), Iran, and China. I can remember the letters when they arrived, particularly from my friend in China, with their long, gorgeous stamps. I still have them all in our attic.

There are, of course, up-sides to the technological revolution that has taken place since then. My kids keep up with an impossibly large group of friends via Snapchat and Whatsapp, and get information, in almost real time, from all around the world. They bank online; they can quickly organise trips with their friends that would have taken hours or days to negotiate before, and pizza is always just a few clicks away…

But it’s not the same.

The UK Book Trust carried out some very interesting research recently. They found that only 25% of 11 year olds would say they love reading. That’s pretty shocking. That will be a huge drop from 30 years ago.

The benefits of reading, according to the Book Trust, are ‘improved speech and language skills, higher academic achievement, better mental well-being, enhanced social skills, and stronger relationships’. What’s not to like? And it also fosters imagination, empathy, and creativity. Who wouldn’t want any of these for your kids?

As a related subject, writing letters (for others to read) surely produces these amazing benefits too – especially the enhanced social skills, and stronger relationships. I was talking to a good friend of mine recently, who told me that up until he was about 18 he regularly exchanged letters with his grandfather, to whom he was very close. That must have been a huge influence for good on him. You can’t beat something like that.

So what can we do? How can we inspire the children in our lives to read, and by extension to write, so they start to pick up all the benefits that we accrued when we were kids?

I’ll always remember the saying that a friend told me years ago. ‘If you want your children to grow veg, grow veg.’ In other words, whatever you want your children to do, do yourself. If we write letters, there’s a good chance they may write letters.

In fact, you could go one step further. Write letters to them. Then they’ll perhaps stand an even better chance of writing back. Write to your kids, your grand-kids, your God children, your nephews and nieces.

And yes, you guessed it – we have a Pigeon for that. Two in fact.

Long live the written word – in books and in letters!

John Morse-Brown
November 2024