BOOKS by KATE BRIDGER

Dear Teddy: The Story Behind The Story

 

Long before people routinely made long distance phone calls and well before the Internet, lovers forced to live apart relied almost entirely on the postal service for their communication exchanges. In my novel, ‘Dear Teddy’, when a crucial letter fails to make it to its destination for almost 50 years, the love story and relationship between the two main characters takes a drastic turn.

 

I grew up in an old stone farmhouse in the Lake District, UK, four miles from the nearest village and yet we had our very own red pillar box at the foot of the drive. In my teen years, I spent many hours lurking around that pillar of hope, waiting for a letter from the boy I loved. Back then, the little red GPO van trundled up our narrow lane twice daily to make deliveries and pick up post.

 

I still communicate with the ‘boy’ I loved back then but rarely, these days, is it in the form of a letter carefully scribed, lovingly sealed in an envelope and entrusted to the postal services of the UK and Canada. The Internet has altered the way we form and maintain relationships and nowhere is this more apparent than in the story of Teddy and Gillian.