One of the things that I least expected when I started Pigeon, was that people who bought my letter packs would use them to write to me, to say thank you. It was so delightfully surprising! I have had Pigeons from the UK, the United States, Germany, and further afield, all just to say how delighted they were when they discovered Pigeon, how much they love it, and what it means to them to be able to connect with their friends and family in a different way.

And it’s made me think about the idea of gratitude – of the whole business of saying thank you.

Most websites these days have review sections. Reviews are everywhere! And a lot of the time, they’re very useful. If you can’t decide which record player/mattress/car to buy, you look at the reviews and see which one is rated most highly. But you do get some very annoying ones… ‘The kettle was delivered on time and the delivery driver was very friendly. Five stars!’ (But what was the kettle actually like? Did it actually boil the water…?)

Even when you call a company these days, you get asked to rate the call. ‘Yes, I loved discussing the cancellation of my insurance policy…) I logged onto an online account last night, and this morning I got an email asking me to ‘evaluate my recent [company name] experience’. No thanks.

But perhaps with all these reviews and opinions, we’re forgetting a simpler, older practice – the practice of gratitude. Of saying those two beautiful, little words – thank you.

Perhaps the biggest indicator of how important these two words actually are, is noticing how we feel when we don’t hear them. When you cook a meal and your kids eat it and just leave the table. Or you pull in and flash a car so that they can pass, and then the driver doesn’t wave. (We spent Christmas in Edinburgh this year, and bizarrely, I noticed a big difference between Edinburgh drivers and Birmingham drivers when it comes to this – they do say the further north you go, the friendlier the people are…). Although they are only little gestures, they make a big difference.

There are even studies that show that gratitude can improve our health, our relationships, and our overall well-being.

At this time of year, we’re all encouraged to write thank you letters. Expressing gratitude for the socks, tea towels and humorous mugs we received for Christmas. But a conversation with a friend recently made me think about the idea of expressing thanks for someone’s friendship – not just thanking them for the gifts they give, but for the gift that they are. I thought that was a really lovely idea.

It’s also worth remembering (and all parents will know this) that if you want your kids to grow up saying thank you and expressing gratitude, you’ve got to start young (which is why we recently launched our first two kid’s Pigeons). (If you want to make thank you letter writing really fun, encourage your kids to write thank you letters for presents they didn’t like – they’ll love concocting white lies and double-meanings in their letters!)

One of the most unusual ‘thank yous’ I ever received was actually from a feathered friend… A few years ago, when I was still working in our garden shed post-pandemic, a large bird flew into the window. I rushed outside and found it lying stunned on the ground. I scooped it up and put it in a cardboard box with some grass and water till it regained its strength, and it eventually flew off. The very next day, I was working in the shed with the door open, when I heard a little shuffling noise outside. I went to look, and there was the very same bird – just standing there and not flying off as you would expect it to do. I decided it had come back to say thank you for looking after it.

And I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now, but the bird was a pigeon.

John Morse-Brown
January 2025