I can’t pretend to be a dab hand at love-letter writing myself, and if you aren’t either but would like to be, read on.

Help is not just at hand – it’s here, now, in this very blog you’re reading.

Hand-written love letters are a thing of the past – and that’s sad, isn’t it?

I met a group of young people the other day, not one of whom had ever sent or received a love letter. One of them claimed not even to know what a love letter is. Seriously, he’d heard about ‘French letters’ and said he’d always assumed ‘love letters’ were some form of old-fashioned contraceptive. I put him right.

I asked a girl in the group how she would indicate to a young man that he had taken her fancy, if not with a love letter. She said she text him an emoji of a smiley face. And if you fancied him a lot? I asked. ‘A smiley face with a tongue hanging out,’ she replied. And how would he respond if he fancied you? I enquired. ‘He’d send me an emoji of an aubergine,’ she said with satisfaction.

She can do better than that, surely? We can all do better than that – and we have 72 hours left before Valentine’s Day 2019 in which to try.

Yes, this is the week in which to send the love of your life the letter of your life! Welcome to the Brandreth master-class on the art of love-letter writing.

Don’t worry, the rules I am about to share have been compiled by me, but they are not my rules: these are the lessons of history.

In preparing this crash course in love-letter writing, I have taken soundings from a number of authorities (all female), ranging from women of experience (the great historian, Lady Antonia Fraser, has compiled the definitive anthology of love letters) to the three young, unattached journalists, aged 26, 27, and 30. As part of my researches, I even made a pilgrimage to Ladbroke Grove and took a masterclass of my own from the award-winning novelist and literary historian, Dame Margaret Drabble, who in one of her novels evoked the love affair and marriage of Robert and Elizabeth Browning – ‘their story is the paradigm of perfect love’, she says – and has read more widely, more wisely, than anyone I know.

So, if you want to woo and win – or simply wow – the one you love, here are the rules, drawn from the experience of the great love-letter writers of yesteryear:

1. Be passionate.

‘A love letter must be full of fire,’ says Drabble. ‘Napoleon wrote cracking good love letters to Josephine. William Wordsworth wrote quite passionately to Mary. Jane Carlyle poured energy and all her literary talent into the letters she wrote to Thomas Carlyle. Jane Austen would write you a witty letter, but she was too proper to be passionate. A good love letter takes risks, feels dangerous. Women, of course, were not allowed to take the initiative in these matters, but had they been, I think Charlotte Bronte would have written you a letter that was suitably impassioned.

‘I would have welcomed a letter of admiration from Lord Byron. He wrote brilliant love letters to everyone – girls, women, men, boys, Caroline Lamb, his half-sister, the sixty year old woman with whom he was having an affair when he was half her age, even his wife. I wouldn’t want a letter from Robert Browning. He belongs to Mrs Browning. They were equally in love and it was a love that endured. But Byron was different. You could have a fling with Byron and move on. No harm done.’

2. Be thoughtful.

According to Lady Antonia Fraser, looks count. ‘How important is the actual physical appearance of the letter! A thousand years ago at the court of the Japanese Emperor, no gentleman would have dreamt of spending a night with a lady without sending round a letter of appreciation the morning after – a letter in which the thickness, size, design and colour of the paper all helped to indicate the emotional mood that the writer wished to suggest – the finishing touch being supplied by the branch or spray of blossom which it was de rigeur to attach to it.’

Margaret Drabble is confident that electronic communication won’t supplant the traditional letter, because the letter is tangible and portable. ‘You can carry a letter with you, hide it under the pillow, keep it in a shoe box with all the others as solid proof of love.’ Antonia Fraser quotes Edith Wharton summing up the crucial moment of the letter’s arrival: ‘the first glance to see how many pages there are, the second to see how it ends, the breathless first reading, the slow lingering over each phrase and each word, the taking possession, the absorbing of them, one by one, and finally the choosing of the one that will be carried in one’s thoughts all day, making an exquisite accompaniment to the dull prose of life.’

3. Be yourself.

Drabble offers reassurance for those who feel they may not have a professional writer’s facility with words. ‘With a love letter, passion, feeling, sincerity are what count. Simplicity of expression can be a virtue. Good writers don’t necessarily write exciting love letters. Fine words can stand in the way of true love. Bernard Shaw is a good example of a writer who managed to hide his feelings behind his words.’

4. Be prosaic.

In 1857 Baudelaire sent a collection of his poetry to his mistress, Madame Sabatier, with a covering note: ‘Farewell, dear lady. I kiss your hand as a sign of my utter devotion. All the verses contained between page 84 and page 105 are yours alone.’ Shakespeare, Byron, the Brownings all wrote love letters in the form of poetry, but Drabble advises, ‘Unless you are a poet, save your blushes and stick to prose.’

(When I was an MP I remember a tender-hearted Tory MP (Mrs Thatcher’s successor at Finchley, a married man, a father of three, and a lay preacher) who succumbed to the charms of his twenty-two year-old researcher and was forced to leave the government when samples of his love poetry found their way into the pages of the News of the World. Apparently there was no affair, simply a sentimental attachment. The Chief Whip was not to be mollified. ‘Whether he’s giving her one or not is immaterial,’ he barked. ‘What we can’t have is any more of his atrocious poetry getting into the public domain. It’s a disgrace to the administration.’)

5. Be sexy.

My trio of young journalists expressed enthusiasm for love letters that are ‘a bit raunchy’. ‘Sexy is good,’ said Julia (30). I showed the trio Chopin’s letter to his mistress Delphine Potocka in which he explains that the sexual act robs him of his creativity – ‘a man wastes his life-giving precious fluid for a moment of ecstasy’- and counts the cost: ‘Who knows what ballades, polonaises, perhaps an entire concerto, have been engulfed in your little D flat major . . .’ ‘I’m sorry,’ said the journalists, pulling a face in unison, ‘that’s a real turn-off.’

According to Margaret Drabble, ‘James Joyce wrote some very outspoken letters to Nora Barnacle – open, sexual and very persuasive. He made it clear what he wanted and she certainly gave in to it. The secret, I think, is to pace yourself. A letter should contain surprises. Unexpected explicitness is very powerful.’

6. Be positive.

Drabble and Fraser report that many of the most compelling love letters in literature have been riven with angst, fuelled by frustration, inspired by adversity, but the young women journalist in my sample are adamant that they want joyful love letters, filled with hope and humour, not anxiety. ‘And I want a letter that’s more about me than it is about him,’ says Sara, 27. ‘A self-absorbed lover is a real bore, especially if he’s always down-in-the mouth. If you can find a bloke who gives the impression that he’s more interested in you than in himself you’re onto a winner.’

7. Be sparing.

Antonia Fraser believes that when it comes to love, persistence pays. She quotes Ovid approvingly: ‘In time refractory oxen come to plough, in time horses are taught to bear the pliant reins, an iron ring is worn by constant use . . . Only persevere, you will overcome Penelope herself.’

Margaret Drabble isn’t so sure. ‘Distrust a man who writes too many letters,’ she says. ‘Not only can the weight of the correspondence be a bit overwhelming, but you have to ask yourself if love-making by letter isn’t a substitute for love-making in fact. Some people use the letter as a way of keeping the relationship at bay. There are six hundred pages of Kafka’s letters to Félice Bauer. They were twice engaged, but each time he called it off. He had a commitment problem, clearly, and found more satisfaction in writing the letters than in marrying the lady.’

Drabble’s ideal correspondent would not write too frequently, nor at too great a length. His letters would be passionate, bold, reckless, surprising – and heartfelt, at least at the time. I suggest to her that it’s a tall order. She raises her whisky to me: ‘If you can’t manage it, don’t despair. You can always go for the Cyrano option and call in the professionals. There’s a respectable tradition of inarticulate chaps getting articulate chaps to write their love letters for them.’

That’s it. If you can’t do it yourself, find a man who can.

Tomorrow, I’ll try to post some examples – moments from some of the great love-letters of history. I’d do it now, but I’ve got a letter to write.

The post How to write a love letter – the Valentine’s Day Masterclass appeared first on World Letter Writing Day.

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Yet spend five minutes Googling “pen pals” and the articles and studies are either geared towards children and tweens, the elderly, or even prisoners. Many mental health charities also offer pen pal schemes to support people through particular challenges such as depression.

Most report benefits of boosted happiness, supporting braindevelopment, increased connection, feelings of acceptance, cross-cultural learning and even boosting physical health.

Factors all adults could benefit from, particularly given increasing rates of burn out, stress and loneliness.

Here are five reasons why you should get out that pen today and find yourself a pen pal.

Writing is good for your brain

Studies continue to highlight the benefits of journaling for mental health. The process of writing out the words on paper can even aid brain cognition and function. Mental health charities have shared case studies of how writing helps normalize people’s feelings and allow them to process them in different ways. And given that humans are social beings, expressing yourself to a pen pal may just enhance these benefits further.

We spend more than a day a week online

With the average person in the U.K. now spending more than one day a week online, the challenges of disconnecting and non-screen time are only growing. One study showed that 40% of adults in the U.K. look at their phones within five minutes of waking up—increasing potential for racing thoughts and anxiousness to kick in early in the day. Whilst there are many pros to what technology provides, over-use is leading to heightened stress.

Writing creates connection

Whilst we are more connected than ever digitally this continues to be reported—we’re feeling more distanced than ever.

More than 9 million people say they always or often feel lonely—and that’s just in the U.K. Recognising the weight of the issue, the U.K. even appointed its first ministerial lead for loneliness in 2018. Chronicloneliness can have a negative impact on mental and physical health, with individuals more prone to depression and an increased risk of high blood pressure and heart disease.

While handwritten letters may not fully replace sitting opposite someone for a cup of tea, there’s an element of deeper connection that is present. Some studies have shown boosts to mood and reductions in stress from expressive writing.

More joy and delight in our lives

Just thinking of the last time you received an actual letter in the post is likely to fill you with at least an inkling of delight. There’s something surprising and delighting about receiving a handwritten note.

Dr Stuart Brown, renown “play” expert, and Brene Brown show how play is critical for our wellbeing and living a full life. Play can also help relieve stress and even stimulate creativity. Who couldn’t do with more of that? Writing letters could be a way to sprinkle back some joy and delight.

Even if you’re not doing it for the benefits to your mental health, brain cognition or deep social connection, having a pen pal at its least will give you an element of play and surprise in your life.

Find penpals on: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WorldLetterWritingDayPenPals/

The post Five Reasons You Need To Start Writing Letters Today appeared first on World Letter Writing Day.

The starting point for the Letters Page was a simple one. I was taking up a job teaching creative writing at the University of Nottingham, and I wanted to encourage the students to think about writing in ways that didn’t involve blank sheets of paper or screens. I wanted them to think about other people’s writing before they started to think about their own, and decided that a good way of doing this would be to set up a literary journal and have the students produce it; reading the submissions, making selections, putting each issue together.

But I wanted it to be a literary journal that could find an underhand way of being literary; to take the self-consciousness out of being literary. I’ve always been interested in the kinds of writing people do when they don’t think they’re being asked To Write, and I’d been thinking about letters as a form; wondering about the differences between letters-on-paper and emails, reflecting on my own letter-writing history, noticing the democracy of correspondence as a literary practice. So the idea was born.

Tell us about the letter or conversation that changed your life

Read more

I asked people to send us letters; real letters, written by hand and sent through the post. I sat in the office with my student assistants and waited for the letters to arrive. There was something exciting about sorting through the pile, letters from Canada and the US, from Spain and Germany and France, from Donegal and Dublin and Brighton and Tring. We set to work with the letter knives and started to read. I was hoping that they would, while still being framed as letters, take the form of stories, essays, poems, memoir, criticism. What actually happened was that almost everyone wrote about the nostalgic and rare pleasure of sitting down to write a letter at all.

I grew up writing letters. They were a big part of making me the writer I am today, I think. As a child there were thank you letters, of course, ruining the long weeks after Christmases and birthdays. And postcards. Letters to the Beano, and Blue Peter, and – now tainted – letters to Jim’ll Fix It. (I wanted to drive a combine harvester, thanks for asking.)

As I grew older, I seemed to accumulate penpals the way other people collected football stickers, and by my late teens I was sending and receiving two or three letters a day. Much of what I wrote then would have been standard teenage diary stuff, about how terrible my life was and how brilliant the Smiths were; but over time, much more of what I wrote became about storytelling.

I was commuting 30 miles a day to college, and spent the time writing about the people I saw on those journeys; and what I didn’t know, I made up. Without really thinking about it, I was experimenting with ways of telling a story, ways of holding a reader’s attention, playing with voice and form and technique; and the friends writing back were doing the same. The boundary between fact and fiction was blurred, but in truth we were only asking about each other’s lives. Through these letters, I was learning about the small corners of the world my friends inhabited: in towns in Dorset and Devon, in south Wales, in north London, in the West Midlands, in Kent. These letters were making physical journeys from places I’d never been, bringing news from elsewhere.

I kept writing letters throughout my time at university. The first time someone gave me their email address, I looked at it as though it had no more relevance to my life than someone’s CB radio handle. But, of course, email crept gradually into my life, initially as a sort of proto-text-messaging, for occasions when quick and simple communication was required. And there was a long period of overlap where I would email someone to let them know I was writing a letter and would soon be posting it. But at some point the balance tilted, and letter-writing became something that happened by choice rather than by default; something a little self-conscious or mannered, something that started to feel like a duty or a task, and so was never quite done; until I moved house a few years later and realised there was no one I needed to tell. My email address wasn’t changing, and my physical address no longer counted. My letter-writing days were over.

It’s been boom time for nostalgia about letter-writing lately. You can always tell that a cultural form is dying when people start making a point of celebrating it. (See also: typewriters, Polaroid photographs, vinyl records.) There have been the excellent Letters Of Note books edited by Shaun Usher, with its accompanying Letters Live stage shows; the Letters In The Mail subscription service run by rumpus.net, where you get a letter from an interesting writer every two weeks; and a whole series of books and articles either celebrating letters, or decrying email, or both.

The letters that started arriving in Nottingham were, on the whole, addressing themselves to this idea of the loss of letter-writing. They were often remarkably self-conscious about the process of sitting down to write. There were many apologies for poor handwriting, and sometimes these were justified. There were references, towards the end of letters, to aching hands. There was some confusion about the cost of stamps. And there was a lot of talk about the letters people had written in the past – about penpals, and relationships maintained across distances, about letters written from the army or from prison or from school – and a lot of talk about when exactly the habit had fallen away.

The Irish novelist Colum McCann wrote fondly to us of his own letter-writing history, and of the letters he has received. “I don’t stack them away in neat little piles,” he wrote, “but sometimes I do leave them lying around my office, so that I can open them and let them surprise me.” He referred also, as many people did, to collections of letters as personal archive material, mentioning a crate of letters his father kept in a shed. “He has told me that I can read the letters at any time. I have told him that I will wait until he is gone. And he tells me that in that crate, those letters, he will never be gone.”

McCann’s letter took a little deciphering, because, while the handwriting itself was immaculate, there were all manner of sidenotes and endnotes tucked into the margins and arrowed between paragraphs. This was quite a theme in many of the letters we received; just how disorderly a handwritten text can be, compared with the linearity of a document on a screen. There were crossings out and rewritings, marginalia, diagrams and doodles, cover notes and Post-it notes and extra scraps tucked into the envelopes. There were pressed flowers, and bookmarks, and even a lock of hair. At least two letters arrived stuffed into plastic bottles, the stamps held on with sellotape and hope. Selma Dabbagh wrote us an abandoned love letter, retrieved from a hotel waste basket and sent as a scrumpled ball. Ruth Gilligan wrote a letter to God, folded into a tightly wedged note as though ready to be pushed into a crack in the Western Wall. Some of the letters were scented, and not always deliberately. Some were torn, and stained, and all of them bore the traces of the journey they had made from the place where they were written. They were physical objects, with all the tactility and uniqueness and marks of time which that implies, and it became more apparent than ever that these marks of time are what distinguish letters from emails and other forms of digital correspondence.

The wonderful thing about email is its immediacy. A conversation can be had – a decision made, a plan refined – in a matter of minutes, no matter where in the world the two parties happen to be. A letter, by contrast, always arrives from the past. There is a waiting – a forced patience – built into the mechanics. You wait for a letter to arrive. You wait for a reply. In the time it takes for the letter to reach its destination, anything can happen: minds be changed, lives lost, loves discovered.

This sense of duration was also borne out by how many of the letters we read wanted to give a sense of where they were, in both space and time: I am sitting at the kitchen table; I am in the garden, under the apple tree; I can hear the children in the bath upstairs and will soon have to fetch them. In that sense, a letter is more “composed” than an email.

But these differences between letters and emails are just that: differences. One is not better or worse than the other. In many ways, the differences hold in microcosm the wider cultural shift away from reading in print to reading on screen. For some people, there will always be something more transient about the latter. There is an astonishing wealth of information on the devices we carry around with us – a wealth that should be celebrated – but it can be difficult to concentrate on one piece of information at a time; to read a single article or book with the kind of deep, measured concentration that seems to come more naturally with print. A printed book stays on your shelf, and can be bookmarked, annotated, flicked through, shared. I know, I know: these things are all possible with digital devices, and they may come naturally to some people. This might just be me. But you don’t have to be an ink-sniffing stationery fetishist to think that perhaps the technology of the printed book is more durable and user-friendly than some people have started to give it credit for.

If I write: ‘first kiss’… and you feel something… suddenly we are in direct connection, mind to mind

Because here’s something I’ve noticed: people really do like having something to hold. I should have mentioned that, despite setting out to celebrate the physicality of the handwritten letter, until this month we published only online, relying on our readers either to print out and savour each issue, or to read it on a screen of their choice. And it’s become clear that, even as the number of our subscribers continues to grow, there has been less engagement with each issue; fewer downloads, fewer responses. It seems as though the format is too ephemeral, too transient; the very opposite of the letters that continue to arrive through our letterbox.

Which is why, because I am an actual ink-sniffing stationery fetishist, we’ve now published them in print. There are letters from the novelists Naomi Alderman, Andrey Kurkov, Joanna Walsh, Kevin Barry and others. But the closing letter, fittingly, is from a retired postal worker in Alberta, Canada – Ken Sears. He writes about the letters he sorted during his career, and how he learned to spot the ones from prison, from lovers, from the person with hypergraphia, or people behaviourally compelled to write; and about how now, in retirement, despite a lifetime of seeing most of the mail he sorted as just so much landfill, he continues to write letters, “Because it’s a big, cold universe, and it feels just a little warmer believing there’s somebody out there, somewhere, who knows you’re still alive. I’ll keep on writing them, and the brothers and sisters down at the local PO will keep shoving them along. They make a few bucks. I draw my pension. I learn a few things and everybody’s happy.”

The post From me, with love: the lost art of letter writing appeared first on World Letter Writing Day.

What’s in this blog?

• Why are fine motor skills important for children learning to write?
• What is letter formation?
• How do I teach my child to write their letters on lines?
• Activities to Practise Forming Letters with Your Child

 

Why are fine motor skills important for children learning to write?

Effective fine motor skills are important for your child so that they can hold and control a pencil more effectively to form their letters. You can practise your child’s fine motor skills at home before they even begin to hold a pen. For example, you could encourage them to fit shapes into a box, put jigsaw pieces together and thread objects on a piece of string.

You could also teach them how to use tweezers, as this will further develop their hand-eye coordination – they could try to fish for and pull out a range of objects from a bowl of water, such as pieces of cloth, string, pompoms, marbles, small plastic bricks and so on.  All these activities can help your child to hold a pencil more confidently when forming their letters.

What is letter formation?

For each letter your child writes, they’ll need to produce a sequence of movements with the pencil to form a letter. They begin at a starting point and follow a set stroke, which is the same each time they form that particular letter. This is something that will need to be repeated hundreds and hundreds of times.

How do I teach my child to write their letters on lines?

Your child will learn groups of letters at a time and this will involve writing out each letter multiple times. You can help them in a number of ways:

• Start with a fun warm-up activity to get the small muscles in your child’s hands ready for writing.

• If your child is doing their writing on lined paper, make the lines more visible for your child – go over them with a thick felt-tip pen or in a different colour.

• Try to make the lines the same size as your little one’s handwriting.

• If your child is using a line guide underneath plain paper to practice handwriting, invest in some paper clips to clip the sheets together.

• Be patient and praise your child’s efforts: they’re likely to find it incredibly frustrating at times.

• Encourage your little one to concentrate on how to form the letters together rather than a quickly-finished product.

• Model how to form the letters – copy the example on the sheet – and talk your child through as you go.

• It’s good to keep practice times short so your little one doesn’t get tired – ten minutes at a time is long enough.

Activities to Practise Forming Letters with Your Child

1. Even before they start writing their letters, it’s a good idea for your little one to develop their motor skills and pencil control. They can learn how to follow and draw lines with this space pencil control activity booklet.

Space Pencil Control Activity Booklet

2. This worksheet is great for helping your left-handed child practise their first letters; you’ll find a template for your child to form each letter of the alphabet, including a guide on where to begin writing each letter and how to follow it (we call this a pen or pencil stroke).

Letter Formation Practice for Left Handers: Magical Theme

3. You could print out this handwriting practice sheet and laminate it so your child can re-use it. The idea is that you have the days of the week and months of the year to practise writing.

Days of the Week and Months of the Year Handwriting Practice (Ages 5 – 7)

4. These ideas for your child to learn to write their name offer suggestions and alternatives to putting pen to paper and being a little more creative when forming letter shapes.

Learning to Write My Name Activity Ideas

5. These name tags are lovely for your child to fill in and give one to each of their toys.

Name Tags for Toys: Handwriting Practice (Ages 5 – 7)

6. Alternatively, create a fun game of ‘roll a letter’ to encourage your child to practice writing all the letters in the alphabet in random order. This activity pack includes some guidelines for them to form each letter too.

Roll a Letter: Handwriting Practice Dice (Ages 5 – 7)

If you’ve found the activities on writing letters on lines in this blog helpful for your child, why not find out more about supporting your child with their fine motor control?

You can also find more information about fun kids activities on www.easternsuburbsmums.com.au

The post Why are fine motor skills important for children learning to write? appeared first on World Letter Writing Day.

A few years ago I was working on my third book which is titled; 100 Australian Legends – The People Who Shaped A Nation. I spent seventeen years meeting, photographing & interviewing 100 Iconic Australians. One of the legends I met & interviewed was Frank Lowy who is the founder of Westfield Shopping Centres. Mr Lowy is a multi billionaire & obviously a very busy person. I knew to get his attention I had to approach him in a different way. I knew that if I sent an email to Westfield that it would be unlikely that it would get to him. I wrote him a letter & posted it to his house.

A week later I received a phone call from Mr Lowy’s personal assistant telling me that he had received the letter & could I come to his office the following week to photograph & interview him. I was so thrilled that I was given this unique access to Mr Lowy.

I went to his office & after passing a few different security points I found myself sitting with Mr Lowy asking him questions about his remarkable life. He was very gracious with his time & told me some incredible stories about how he started Westfield. After the interview I took some photographs of him & thanked him for his time.

A few days later I was speaking to a friend of mine who is a journalist for a very well known network. I told him that I had recently spent over an hour with Mr Lowy. He was speechless! My friend went on to tell me that he had spent two years trying to secure an interview with Mr Lowy but with no luck.

“How did you manage to get the interview” he asked me, “I simply wrote him a letter”. I’ve told many people this story over the past few years & all of them have admired my “thinking outside of the square” approach.

So the next time you need to contact that manager or CEO, don’t be like everyone else & write them an email, stand out from the crowd & write them a letter. You never know, you might find yourself in the company of a billionaire!

Never underestimate the power of writing a letter.

Richard Simpkin.

Frank Lowy – Founder of Westfield. Photo by Richard Simpkin.

The post Writing A Letter For Business appeared first on World Letter Writing Day.

Alec Campbell was the last person to survive the battle of Gallipoli.

I was fortunate to spend two days with Alec & his wife Kathleen in February 2002 to photograph him & interview him about his incredible life.

Letter to Alec Campbell January 2002

BIO: Alec Campbell Bio by Richard Simpkin

Portrait of Alec Campbell; Richard Simpkin 2002.

Alec Campbell – WWI & Last Survivor of Gallipoli

From all the nations that enlisted, Alec Campbell became the face for all who served at Gallipoli. He didn’t want to, nor did he understand why; but history books will show that Alec William Campbell would be the last man standing that served in Gallipoli.

Alec Campbell was born on the 26th February 1899.  On 2nd July 1915 Alec reported himself to the recruiting office to sign up for the war.  Alec enjoyed riding horses, so when he went to sign up, he wanted to be in the light horse brigade, but was told there was a waiting list.  Alec thought he might miss the war, so he joined the Australian Imperial Force instead.  Alec was 16 and 4 months, but told the recruiting officers that he was 18 and four months.  After convincing the recruiting officers of his age, he now had to persuade his parents to sign a letter to give their son consent to go off to war.  On 30th June 1915, Alec’s parents signed the document.

Private A. W. Campbell, no:273, 15th Battalion, Fourth Infantry Brigade AIF, as he was now known as sailed on the 15th August 1915 aboard the SS Kyarra, arriving in Egypt where he and his mates trained in the sand dunes of Cairo.  “It was all an adventure; it was amazing to see the pyramids, camels and sand dunes.”  After training in Egypt, Alec left for the shores of Gallipoli; during his journey to the shores of Gallipoli a man sitting in front of Alec was shot by a Turkish sniper and fell to the floor of the boat.  Alec arrived already shaken in Gallipoli on October 1915.  “When we arrived there was rapid fire, you had to keep your head down or you would get shot.  I remember it being very hilly, we had to build trenches where we would fire from, most of the firing would be done from the trenches; and we would just blaze away.”

When Alec first joined the army, like many he joined for the adventure. “When I was there it was sort of an adventure in a way, because I was young you see, I was too young to think of war as a wrong thing.” Alec thought that there were some interesting things about Gallipoli.  “The Turks dress and manners were interesting, they wore long white clothes, like a nightgown; but Gallipoli was just Gallipoli. The Turks were good soldiers, very good with the rifle, if your head was above the ground you would be a goner.  Overall it was a dangerous place to be and we were glad to come home”. Alec saw just 6 weeks in Gallipoli.

On the 3rd January 1916 Private Campbell was admitted to First Australian General Hospital in Cairo.  His health had completely broken down; he spent 6 months in Cairo recovering.  He had jaundice, scabies, head lice, mumps and palsy, which permanently paralysed the right hand side of his face.  On 24th June 1916 Alec boarded the Port Sydney and headed home.  On his arrival to Tasmania he was discharged from the army on 22nd August as being medically unfit.

Alec’s life after Gallipoli was long and full, he went bush and was a jackaroo, and he spent time building houses, which gave him his strength and overall health back.  He became the Tasmanian Flyweight Boxing Champion, spent time building boats, worked on building Parliament House in Canberra; which opened in 1927.

Alec got married had children and he worked for the railways. In his 50’s Alec gained a University Degree in Economics, Alec also learnt to sail and competed in 6 Sydney to Hobart races. He remarried, had two more children, his last when he was 69 and later worked as an advisor for the heart foundation, until he was in his 80’s. After a life definitely filled to the brim, Alec William Campbell will be remembered for his services in Gallipoli.

I was lucky to meet Alec and spent two days with him and his wife Kathleen in February 2002.  I spent time interviewing and photographing him, his memory had almost gone from his days spent at Gallipoli and it’s just as well; Gallipoli was no place for anyone to fight at in 1915, especially a 16 year old boy.  Alec died on Thursday 16th May 2002.  The entire nation mourned as one. Men women and children cried, when they heard the news. Prime Minister John Howard said at Alec’s funeral “Being the last to fall Alec Campbell had become a symbol for all those young men who landed on that beach and fought that terrible war.”  In February 2002 I asked Alec “Do you feel proud to be a part of Gallipoli, “No, it never struck me to be proud, why should I be?”.  Alec embodied the true Anzac spirit; he was and always will be, our digger.

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In 1997 I wrote a letter to cricketing great & one of my idols; Sir Donald Bradman. I asked him what would be the right cricket bat to buy & also asked him if he was ever scared of being hit during his cricketing career. He was incredibly generous to reply to my letter.

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