MY NEIGHBOUR Betty is always writing letters. When I pop over to her house, I often find her at the kitchen table penning the latest news to her nieces in America or her sister-in-law in South Africa.

She inspired me to splash out on a set of good quality envelopes and writing paper, but, sadly, the visions I had of me sitting at my own table happily crafting missives to friends about what’s going on in my life, and wishing them well in theirs, have not materialised.

I love writing letters, but it takes time, and that is something I don’t have enough of. Firing off an email is so much easier.

For example, I recently had to write to a rail company after seats I’d reserved for a long journey were double-booked. Our computer was broken, and it took me around half an hour to write a letter by hand. I was in a rush, kept making mistakes and had to keep starting again. The waste bin was full of scrawled up paper. An email would have taken less than ten minutes.

It’s the same with personal letters. For convenience I regularly email my sister in London, but in the dim and distant past we would write to each other. I still have the letters she sent to me when I was a student – they’re hilarious, with all their little doodles and the photos she’d stuck in.

I have similar letters from friends, written in the days before email. Letters are a pleasure to receive and show a certain warmth and feeling. A bundle of letters – each one different – is so much nicer to keep than a bank of electronic mail.

I still receive hand-written letters from one friend – and sometimes from readers of this column – and love it when they fall on the doormat. Among the sea of bills, they’re uplifting.

I hope letter writing comes back into fashion. I find it sad that today’s children don’t know how to compose letters, or when to put yours sincerely or faithfully. It was rammed into us at school.

But things don’t look good. This week is National Stationery Week, aimed at getting us all to put pen to paper. “The pen is mightier than the sword” it boasts on its internet site. Under its catchphrase ‘Let’s get Britain writing’ it invites people to enter a competition with a £500 stationery hamper as the prize.

That’s great, I thought. Then I read on to find out how to enter – not by putting the mighty pen to paper, but through Twitter or Facebook. How encouraging is that? At least there are people like Betty to keep the art alive.