I was immediately drawn to the short article you enclosed with your letter from Mary Jane’s Farm since it seems, despite its brevity and the lack of letter writing, to speak to many. I was honestly surprised that the author took texting as being of higher value than writing letters, but perhaps that is her…

Thinking back over several years of letter writing, as this is hardly a new project or hobby for me, I cannot recall too many times when someone has approached me through a letter, without me having been in touch with them before. Several times – twice this year – I have been asked for my…

Like you, I have come across, and lived, with many people of different Couleur in my life, both in Europe and elsewhere around the world. I cannot claim that they included murderers, torturers or kidnappers amongst their number, but there was certainly a very mixed collection of people from a wide variety of nations. My…

The internet is, indeed, a wonderful invention and I am sure I agree with you: you can find anything. Well, almost anything, there are still a few world secrets left out there which haven’t made it as far as our virtual world, nor as far as those who sell the internet as a product would…

It is difficult to say exactly what changes modern technology has wrought with society, although we can all see that there are many, since these changes have been in the making for many decades. The advance of communications technology, with the smart phone and internet, is merely an end-effect from things which have been looming,…

Initially I thought a postcard would be more appropriate, and I spent several hours going through boxes of photographic, lithographic, artistic and funny cards, old and new, to see if there was anything which really spoke to me, and which I would want to share or, better still, which would refer to something very important…

There is a strange, and not inappropriate, saying that you don’t know what you’ve got until it is gone. In this case, the removal of your access to communication with the outside world, I think it fair to say that you did know what you had and respected it greatly; but other people knew too…

To say that letters are important for those who have no other real connection to the outside world is something of an understatement: for me, letter writing is one of the most important means to keep people in touch with the rest of the world, with their lives outside of the prison system, and with…

There is nothing wrong with honesty whatsoever, to continue from my last and after your interesting comments: I would much rather know that a person is going to be honest with me, to whatever extent is possible, than always have the fear that I will find out some dark truth by other means, having trusted…

It is early on a Tuesday morning, the rain of our weekend is behind me, and the hope of sun for the rest of the week, especially that time when I am able to go outside and enjoy it, lies as a pleasantly beckoning future. But first I must deal with other pleasures, and today…