Letter from America

A kind thought from a friend in America brought a package my way that had many more stamps inside it than there were on the cover. This 1980 series of British postage stamps designed by David Gentleman commemorated the 150^th anniversary of the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. They are colourful reminders of that momentous occasion.

They are in a similar “side-elevation” style to a much earlier set of illustrations recording the beginnings of the same route. In 1833, Isaac Shaw pictured the different ways that people and goods were carried by this new form of transport. The four linear diagrams were republished in 1894, and were later used in two separate carriage prints by the London Midland and Scottish Railway. These were fixed to the compartment walls, above the seats and underneath the luggage racks.    

Letter from America, the Home Service programme that was broadcast by Alistair Cooke [then continuing into the replacement, Radio Four], was a regular event at home when I was a child. I continued to dip in to it on a less regular basis throughout the programme’s existence up until the time that it finished, which was shortly before Alistair Cooke died, in 2004.

He was much appreciated for his relaxed and somehow rather comforting delivery, dealing, as he was, with some of the more vexing and volatile issues of the day. He was also rightly known for his dry wit and the insight and wisdom that came from his wealth of experience as a journalist and commentator. Although I had always had an interest in things American - I had opted for American Studies at college and then made use of it to get a belated “A” level in American history - I could have no idea at the time how important our own “special relationship” would eventually become.