Jess Adamson: How forgotten letters – including one from a former PM – helped me rediscover my youth

While doing a big clean up, Jess Adamson found hundreds of handwritten letters from her parents, besties, and a PM – and with it came a flood of long-forgotten memories.

Former 7News presenter Jess Adamson at her home in 2020. Picture: Tom Huntley

We’ve just had a big clean up at our house and in the process, I’ve rediscovered my youth.

I found a broken gift bag bursting with hundreds of handwritten letters – and I’ve devoured every single one of them over the past fortnight.

A time waster? Yes. Worth it? 100 per cent. It was like finding a treasure chest dripping with jewels.

The letters have taken my breath away, restored long forgotten memories and made me laugh and cry. They’ve reminded me of the joy of seeing a handwritten letter with my name on it.

Most of them came when I was at boarding school from ages 12-17. There was a long wooden sideboard outside the boarders’ dining room, and at lunch time each day, the mail would be spread along it – year 12s at one end, year 8s at the other.

Former 7News presenter Jess Adamson at her home, where she rediscovered her youth through hundreds of forgotten handwritten letters. Picture: Tom Huntley

Mum and dad didn’t overload the sideboard. To be fair they preferred the phone, but wrote enough to keep my middle sister and I up to date with all the news of our pets and the farm.

There are hundreds of letters from my best friend in our home town of Hallett.

They are a precious snapshot of life in the ’80s – exciting bush camps, nerve-racking school discos and musicals, tedious exams, pesky boys, sporting triumphs and how much we missed each other. They arrived with glitter, scratch and sniff stickers, bubble writing, Polaroid photos and multi-coloured hand-drawn pictures. One arrived with a piece of her dear mum’s famous caramel slice … I couldn’t read it, but it was worth it.

We wrote back and forth relentlessly for five years. And as I held those letters in my hands last week, the memories came flooding back. I remembered how cathartic and comforting it was to sit down and write to her.

Every time I wrote, sealed the envelope and licked the stamp, I knew that in three or four days’ time, 200km away, she’d be laughing.

And while much has been written about the lost art of letter writing, I hate that my children will never have that feeling.

Texts, emails and Snapchat are their letters, and they don’t compare.

A bit further down in the bag, I found really kind letters from one of my favourite primary school teachers. I considered him a friend and wrote to him regularly from the boarding house.

The poor man probably felt like he had to write back, mainly about how our footy teams, Norwood and Port, were faring. I loved his letters, but it wouldn’t happen now.

A personalised letter from Bob Hawke.

One of the best letters I ever received came from Parliament House in Canberra. It was 1984 and I was 11. I was in the chook house when it arrived on the farm. A few months earlier I’d met our then prime minister Bob Hawke during a Test match at Adelaide Oval.

His government car pulled up right next to the Chappell Bar and he stepped out with his father Clem. As the TV cameras swarmed around him, I dug deep into my moleskins and found a lonely Lifesaver.

It was covered in fluff, but I offered it to the PM, and he popped it into his mouth. I wrote to Mr Hawke when I got home. And he wrote back:

Dear Jessica,

Thank you for your letter, which I enjoyed reading.

I do remember you giving me a lolly at the Adelaide Oval and I assure you I enjoyed eating it!

My wife and I had a lovely Christmas, and hope you and your family also enjoyed the holidays.

Best wishes to you for 1984,

R.J.L. Hawke.

It was brief, and yes, I do realise now he may not have penned it himself, but what a thrill.

When the University of SA celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2016, I was lucky enough to meet Mr Hawke again and I showed him the letter he wrote me 32 years earlier.

He graciously claimed he remembered the moment amid much laughter. That letter, with the kangaroo and the emu at the top, still gives me goosebumps.

Jess Adamson with former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, 32 years after Jess gave him a fluff-covered lolly at Adelaide Oval.

I’ve also discovered dozens of letters in that big paper bag, from my penfriend in Belgium, Manuela Swinnen. I can’t remember how we found each other but they always started with “How goes it?” and “How goes the sheep it?”

We would roll around on the floor laughing at her wonderfully endearing English. I can only imagine what her family thought of my pathetic attempts at French taken straight from a dictionary.

It’s odd, isn’t it, that we regularly wrote to perfect strangers back then. Or is it?

What I loved about that letter exchange was how much I learnt about places I’d never been to. Her beautiful, perfumed paper arrived with different stamps each time and it blew my small country mind. I’d dive into the back pages of my junior encyclopedias afterwards to study the flags of those faraway places.

And the last letters in the bag were from my schoolfriends during our holidays – a slice of history I’ll keep forever.

Jess Adamson’s daughter left this cute letter underneath mum’s pillow.

“Miami Vice is on and it’s sooo good. Before that, 21 Jump Street. Did I tell you PAT CASH was on Young Talent Time?! His hair is just beautiful.”

I wish we still wrote letters.

Our children barely get their pens out these days and their handwriting is grim at best. Wouldn’t it be nice if they could dedicate a few hours a week to letter writing? A chance to practise not only their handwriting skills but channelling their personal thoughts on paper.

In my experience, little children love to write letters but then they discover an iPad and it’s goodnight Irene.

My daughter put a letter under my pillow a few years ago. It started with “Dear Mum, you are the Best mum Iv hade.” Always reassuring. I hope she writes again soon.

I rang my primary schoolfriend last week and told her I’d like to drop her letters around. They are her story, and while I’ve kept a few of the very best, I want her to have them.

They’re bundled up, in some kind of chronological order, with a smart ribbon.

But then, I changed my mind on dropping them in.

I’m going to post them. With a letter. And just maybe, she’ll write back.