I recognize the hands on my screen. They are moving in slow concentric circles, with a stub of a pencil between the index finger and the thumb. My grandfather is a man who doesn’t believe in throwing things away.  

Portland Coffee bustles as Lydia Sanders and I stand in line for a beverage. We chat off-hand about the content of our previous seminar and as our orders are called out, we take a seat at a table and I set up. We’re both bundled up in winter clothes but the sun has popped out for a brief guest appearance, painting the already warm tones of the café even warmer. 

On a Friday afternoon, things are winding down, pints are poured and the weekend is imminent for most. But for Head Chef Joe Laker, his working week is only really just gaining momentum. Point proven as he pops onto the screen in his chef whites and a pen in hand, taking a quick break from the kitchen, down in the wine cellar of his restaurant, FENN.

Every line of this poem has been taken from a letter written by Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo Van Gogh. Reading some of these letters reminded me that the world was a very uncomplicated place at some point. The simplicity of Van Gogh’s words but the complexity of the emotions and experiences conveyed through them helped me remember how powerful writing can be.

Charles Darwin wrote a letter to Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1844 in which he said: “At last gleams of light have come, & I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable.”

When I first moved to Nottingham, I clung to anything that reminded me of home, as the first week came ailed with a homesickness that followed me around as I navigated a new city, a new course, and new people. One of these ‘home things’ was a letter my Nan had written me back when I was in school. Blue-tacked to my bedside wall, I read it every night before bed, and woke up to it every morning. With her messy cursive scrawl patterning the page like a piece of art, – along with the doodles of her old dog drawn in one curled corner – every time I read it, I felt like no time had passed since the last time I saw her.

As a child of the neon-bright noughties, I didn’t grow up with letter writing. By then, we could send 30p texts on hot-pink flip phones, penning literary gems like “WUU2” and “urdumped btw x”. So I was a little surprised when a letter from one of my childhood friends, who had just started studying in Aberystwyth, turned up in my university postbox.

There is an excitement that comes from waiting for a letter to arrive. These days, the closest most of us get to this feeling is another Amazon parcel through the door (or chucked over the fence). But it’s not quite the same, is it? 

When my father was twelve years old, he used to work at a paper mart. He spoke only in his mother tongue, Gujrati. Although English wasn’t his first language, he was determined to master it. He couldn’t afford to buy books in English and those were rare to come by in the rural town of Jamnagar in Gujarat. In his spare time between sorting out old magazines and stacking newspapers, he would sit down with a tattered copy of ‘The Great Gatsby’ and attempt to learn.