Letter Writing

One previous project over the years was writing the odd letter to the National Newspapers in the UK. Further details on request. Below is a summary of selected letters which went to press. A surprising success rate was achieved in terms of letters published compared to the number sent off. Perhaps no less than one in four were published. Photo right: Postbox outside entrance to Chequers, country residence of the British Prime Minister; The presence of surveillence cameras around the perimeter wall of the grounds made it appear uninviting to say the least.

Year Published	Newspaper	Details
2001	The Times	Writing on the future of the then Millennium Dome
2001	The Independent	Suggesting ideas on taxation policies for the forthcoming General Election
2001	The Guardian	Same letter as above, also published in different paper on same day
2001	The Guardian	One liner joke about William Hague
2001	The Daily Telegraph	One liner joke about the Turner prize judges, published alongside a serious letter in defence of its credibility by Sir Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate Galleries
2008	The Sunday Times	Letter to Michael Winner
2004	The Sunday Times	Commenting on protesters entering the House of Commons
2010	The Daily Telegraph	Regarding mobile phones in prisons. Two follow up letters published following days commenting on my letter
2011	The Daily Telegraph	Inclusion of letter not on letters page but in an article.
2014	The Daily Telegraph	Leading letter one weekday

Whilst this was going on in the later years, the letters became less serious and more silly and so it then came as no surprise that they never made it into the papers. However, thanks to Iain Hollingshead, a freelancer who worked at the letters desk on The Daily Telegraph, the past 10 years have seen an annual published book containing unpublished letters to the Daily Telegraph. Each year, the books have been popular in the shops as Christmas Gifts. I have had a letter published in five books, (and suggested the title of a sixth) naturally non sensible ones, which makes me wonder whether I will ever feel the urge to write anything sensible to the papers ever again. But then again...

The books I have had letters in are listed below.

Year	Title	Editor, Publisher
2010	I Could Go On...	Iain Hollingshead, Aurum Press
2011	I Rest My Case...	Iain Hollingshead, Aurum Press
2012	Imagine My Surprise...	Iain Hollingshead, Aurum Press
2013	Am I Missing Something... ?	Iain Hollingshead, Aurum Press
2018	Must I Repeat Myself... ?	Iain Hollingshead / Kate Moore, Aurum Press

To add an extra twist to the above, in October 2018, the Daily Telegraph ran a feature in the newspaper on the Must I Repeat Myself... ? book ("Ten years of the Telegraph's best unpublished readers' letters", by Iain Hollingshead). In this article was featured my letter from the 2010 book, and so, I guess in fact I had an unpublished letter to the paper which was (albeit not on the Letters Page), published!