Show HN: My father's letters as a diplomatic courier from 1960-66 | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: My father's letters as a diplomatic courier from 1960-66

billbrowndearmom.weebly.com

91 pointswill_brown14 comments

I built/posted this landing page for my Dad's side project based on this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10181793

Lots of positive words that I have forwarded to my Dad :)

That was... fast!

Read those comments this morning, good on you. Best of luck to you both.

Wow, amazingly quick. I look forward to reading them when i get home.

Just a thought, in reading the PDF copy that was typewritten, it feels really nice to see the spelling mistakes, and get a sense for the original form that the letter took. I worry that in digitizing it loses a lot of the romance of the stories themselves. It could be really nice to have a book where the format includes a high resolution scan of the original letter on a white background, and then a digital copy of the text following it for reading. It would break up each letter nicely too I imagine, creating a cool rhythm. Just wouldn't want to lose the interest of the original documents.

The book itself will include digital images of the actual letters, many of which are on this bizarrely thin onion skin paper. The letters themselves in some instances contain sketches that get lost in the transcripts as you suggest. Also included will be digital images of about 50 postcards and modern pictures of many of the items he bought, which he describes in the letters (i.e. Indian bronze table/tea kettle, wooding carvings from the Congo, etc...)

I believe the onion-skin paper had two advantages for messages intended for courier transport: it was really light, so more messages could be carried per courier (this became even more important for air-mailed communications; more messages per plane!); and it was also, for high-security messages, more easily folded up and concealed. (You might guess it was more easily destroyed under threat, too, but it's probably not—onion-skin paper is stronger than it looks!)

Oddly enough, in the military-fiction book I have on my lap at the moment, one of the characters has a rolled-up bit of onion-skin paper tucked into a hidden compartment of their jacket with a set of recent codes and ciphers on it. Similar idea.

Not long ago you could buy special air-mail letters. These were thin blue paper, with an envelope front printed on one side and a gummed trip on the other. You'd write your letter on the back, fold them up and stick them down, and post at reduced rates (because they were guaranteed to be light, having no enclosures).

I haven't seen one for ages. I hope they haven't vanished completely; they were a really good idea...

Interesting read

I used to write letters to my grandfather regularly then the telephone came

I wonder how the story will be on a time fast forwarded to 100 years. Perhaps whatsapp chats on an old phone? Now a days everything we do, we share it on fb/instagram

He keeps mentioning the various girls he is meeting. Made me curious. Did he end up marrying overseas? Or was that all just for fun.

He specifically got out of the service because he wanted to settle down and start a family, and he didn't think it was likely to happen for him with his schedule at the time. It remains one of the more pivotal decisions of his life. After the service he relocated to Miami and met my Mom (married with 5 boys).

This is great. I wish it was a more of a thing in our society for people to keep their letters as well as create oral histories.

fyi, your letters are marked backwards. the helsinki link takes you to calcutta and vice versa.

Otherwise, very exciting.

Thanks. I enjoyed letting him know people outside of the family took interest in his letters...I am not sure he believed me - ha.

Sent it to a few people, and they all love the letters!

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