Here’s a post about a book to celebrate the sadly dwindling art of letter writing and as a result, the last of books about letter correspondence. I am a big fan of both, there is so much to enjoy from the sending and receiving of letters and much to learn about a person through their personal correspondences. This collection of letters from the 1930s until the authors death in 1988 are a wonderful, warming reminder of the value of a letter.

Robin Tanner, born in England in 1904, he was an artist, etcher and printmaker who subsidised his art by teaching until his retirement in 1964. He was devoted to his wife, Heather, whom he married in 1931. In 1939 they adopted a son, Dietrich Hanff, then an eighteen year old Jew from Nazi Germany who stayed by their side until their deaths.

This wonderful book, first published in 1991 by Impact Books and edited by Tim Fenn, begins with a letter from 1920 when Tanner was still a schoolboy with the last, an unfinished letter to Ken Pritchard written just days before his death from cancer and later discovered by his son who ensured Pritchard received it.

I first became aware of Tanner via an old BBC documentary and was immediately taken with both his gentleness and his great love of art and nature and how to combine them to create some quite magical pieces. These letters give a real insight into the man and his chore beliefs. He was a conscientious objector of the Second World War and went on to be a supporter of CND- the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. They also show the life of an ageing artist and how he balanced requests for both his art and his time and all the while his love for his home life and those closest to him.

Discussions about pens and his calligraphy as well as the process behind etching and printing are ongoing themes, he wrote beautifully, much to the shame of this blogger whose writing leaves much to be desired!

Throughout the book are references to his beloved wife and the work they did together, most of his letters give thanks and/or praise to the recipient and whilst he wrote of requests from art galleries for his work, and book offers and television productions, he was the epitome of modesty. He was clearly a man in demand and agonised over having to let people down through lack of time and later, age and declining health: What I dislike is being forced through lack of time to be less inviting and generous than I want to be. I only hope that these dear people understand and forgive me.

He writes about his cancer diagnosis with the kind of stoicism that one would expect from his generation, in the year leading up to his death, he remained hopeful of a cure and/or a longer life. It struck me how painful it must have been for that small family unit of three to cope with and this poem I found particularly moving:

I feel very lucky to still write letters, to receive them is a thing of great joy and something I shall hold onto with dear life. Books such as these show us what we have lost but could easily reclaim. It is such a gentle pleasure, Tanner left a wonderful legacy, not only with his art but in how to live with common decency.