h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dear langsandy,

My friend, LLWaz, has just sent me a guide to your inspiring writing on the Seagulls and winter.

At the moment I am trying to ride through waves of mental illnes, and physical illness being experienced by two very dear people - a brother and a son. Waz thought that your writing would help. It has - so much, and now I hope that even though I feel that I am being buffeted by the elements, somewhere, below tree level there will be safety and succour.

I hope that you do not mind but I have added your name to my list of friends. I shall treasure the writing that you share with us.

Very sincerely,

Christiane AlsoRan1

dr Sheer Plod

my father was a Kentish man and his father
once skippered a lugger that fished the Dogger
Bank - I still have the papers describing the
conditions of his bonded apprenticeship signed
in Ramsgate 1888 - he introduced me to poetry
when I was a child and could recite screeds of
it - this fragment still amuses me :

It ain't the 'auntin or the jauntin
That 'urts the 'osse's 'ooves
Its the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer,
Along the 'ard 'igh road

[this must have reminded him of his own
childhood}

poetry has been my bread most of my life tho
today the lyric line survives only in song -
Hopkins' covers the gamut of the finer human
emotions and still provides succour - do you
know him & may I bid you welcome - nice to
hear from you - langsandy