We may be biased around here, but we were delighted to have the virtues of personal letter writing described in a recent Daily Mail article (28 December 2008).

I know now that my parents were absolutely right to insist on this small but meaningful courtesy. 

Now a present giver and hostess in my own right, I still harbour a grudge against the bride who didn’t take the time to write to thank me for the wedding present I took the trouble to pick out. 

Equally, I treasure the beautifully worded missives from dinner guests, house guests and friends who not only appreciated my efforts, but let me know that they had. 

It would be all too easy to think that with the advent of countless more contemporary methods of communicating, the art of letter-writing was about to be consigned to a bygone era. 

However, those in the know insist that, despite the encroachment of text messaging and email, letter-writing is enjoying a renaissance.