Dust on My Feet: September 2020

Postcard sent from Carcassonne, France October 1971

Postcard sent from Carcassonne, France in October 1972

In recent weeks, to keep myself occupied during the covid-19 lockdown, I have been collating my travel letters & postcards to my parents and copying them onto my computer. The first letters date back over 50 years, when I flew first to Singapore and then to Kathmandu to join an Penn Overland tour to London. As I read through my letters I begin to realise just how much my parents must have looked forward to them. I was on the other side of the world and a sometimes infrequent letter was the only reassurance my parents had that I was Okay. This was the days before faxes, and many years before email, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the now modern means of communication.

I can still see my mother walking to our roadside letterbox at 10 River Rd. Te Atatu, or, in later years at 1360 Whangaparaoa Rd, Army Bay, to collect an envelope with a grouping of colourful exotic postage stamps. Looking intently at these small colourful postal labels, she would rush inside to open and read of the adventures I had been having. I had asked her to preserve my letters after they had done the rounds of family and friends, which she did assiduously and, I dare say, probably re-read them.

Envelope of letter posted in Moscow, June 1971

I remember the excitement when, as a child and teenager, I received letters from overseas. The colourful stamps and exotic postmarks added to a sense of mystery and an eagerness to read the contents. The letter may have been from a family friend who had recently gone overseas, or maybe it was from a penfriend of whom I had a number during schooldays and after. I was also an avid stamp collector in those days and consequently always hoped a letter would have many colourful stamps.

Aerogramme posted in Kabul, Afghanistan. March 1970

In 1970, when I headed away from New Zealand, first to Kathmandu to travel Overland to Britain, I began writing on a regular basis. It is now, as I transfer my letters on to computer, that I began to realise how important my letters were to my parents. Sometimes there were sizable gaps between my communications, especially when I was in Third World countries. There must have been times when they were concerned, especially when I was in darkest Africa in 1973. It is possible some letters may never have arrived, although looking through the correspondence of these years, I would think the most did. In those days it was really the postcard that took the place of a quick text to say all was okay. I would send postcards between lengthy missives, and I know my Mum, in particular, always enjoyed these colourful postcards. Today an email is received the second it is written, even from the remotest of destinations.

Following are a few colourful envelopes and postcards from these pre-computer days when the only means of of urgent communication was by telegramme, or phone call, then expensive and having to be booked hours, or even days, in advance.

An envelope posted in Kigali, Rwanda during my Trans-African odyssey in 1973

A letter from Gibraltar in November 1971

A cluster of Nepalese stamps on a larger envelope posted in Kathmandu in 1981

Stamps in particular, could be topical, such as the marriage of Prince Charles to Diana in 1981

Sometimes the placement of stamps can make things a little difficult, as there's not much rooms on a postcard at the best of times. This postcard was posted in Yazd, Iran in November 1979, during the American Hostage crisis, hence the reference to 'the troubles with Americans'.

A post mark on a letter can also conjure up images of exoticism. The postmark can tell its own romantic story. I have selected half a dozen, mainly from the '60s, before individual post offices & theor postmarks disappeared.

Nuku'alofa, the capital of the Island Kingdom of Tonga.