Iain Hollingshead - I Could Go On: Unpublished Letters to the Daily Telegraph

SIR One of the presents my wife gave me on Christmas Day was Am I Alone in Thinking? UnpublishedLetters to The Daily Telegraph.

I take great comfort in the fact that, despite these troubled and uncertain times, the Great British sense of humour is still very much alive and well. I should like it to be known that, while reading the book, I almost wet myself on at least three separate occasions.

BruceChalmers

Goring by Sea, West Sussex

SIR I have a big dilemma do I hope that my letters are not printed and that they might appear in the book of unpublished letters at the end of the year, or do I go for the glory of seeing my letter in print in the newspaper?

The book, of course, will make a better Christmas present if one of my letters is included.

If all fails, I can only hope that one of my photos will appear on the BBC weather programme.

VeronicaBliss

Compton, Hampshire

SIR Seeing my wifes previously unpublished letter in Am I Alone in Thinking?, a lifelong friend sent her a text message: One up on old man him only in paper, you in book.

Not so, responded Anne. Him in book too! Has any other couple managed the double?

RobertWarner

Aston, Oxfordshire

SIR I have put up with my husbands rants staring at me from your letter pages. However, it really is too much to discover on reaching page 104 of Am I Alone inThinking? that our dog also holds trenchant views on life.

By way of punishment I am withholding treats and walkies. I shall probably do the same with the dog.

KateFell

Flintham, Nottinghamshire

SIR Is it just me, or am I alone in thinking that I could go on?

MikeComiskey

London SE5

Even after working on The Daily Telegraphs letters desk for a while, one can rarely predict which topics will get our admirable readers going next. One moment its the defence of the realm, the state of the NHS and the challenge of alternative energy sources. The next, theyre sharing their thoughts on the best headgear for middle-aged drivers of sports cars, or the kindest ways to prevent garden birds flying into French windows.

One of the most enjoyable and longest-running correspondences this year concerned our readers recollections of their school reports. It started from nowhere and went on for several weeks, including such gems as: When the workers of the world unite it would be presumptuous of Dewhurst to include himself among their number; Unlike the poor, Graham is seldom with us; and The improvement in his handwriting has revealed his inability to spell.

The only thing of which one can be certain on the letters desk is that the correspondence will keep pouring in. Modern technology has changed the way in which readers interact with their newspaper, but it hasnt hastened the death of the letters page. Quite the opposite, in fact. Of the 700 letters we receive on average each day a huge increase on the pre-internet era at least 500 arrive by email. Letters to the Editor offer a coherent, carefully edited space a kind of daily competition, if you will that exhibits the best of what our readers are thinking. They are seldom shy of sharing these thoughts, writing from their offices, from holiday even, in one instance, from the bath. One correspondent suggested that we run a separate letters page for emails sent after pub closing time.

Well, we havent decided to do that yet. But last year I had the idea of collating some of the best unpublished letters into a book for the first time. Some of them hadnt made the newspaper as they arrived too late and the news agenda had moved on, or they addressed an interesting topic which didnt quite fit with the rest of the days selection (we only have space to publish around 20). Sometimes, they were too whimsical, or indeed too risqu, for a serious daily newspaper. Sometimes, frankly, they were completely and utterly (and wonderfully) mad.

Am I Alone in Thinking? proved to be a surprise Christmas bestseller, appealing to both old and new readers. Happily, the answer to the books semi-rhetorical title was a resounding No. Jennifer Latham, writing from Wedmore in Somerset, spoke for many in her pleasure at discovering what a cheeky, irreverent lot fellow readers are Greed, envy, lust, revolution, nuttiness, political incorrectness brilliant reading, all. Katrin Ziegler, an English teacher in Ottweiler, Germany, said that she had used the book in lessons with her 16-year-old pupils. We printed a few of these letters in the paper, delighting in the irony of publishing letters about previously unpublished letters, which had now been published.

Initially, I was reluctant to attempt a follow-up edition. I had begun working in other parts of the newspaper; producing a completely new book would mean another year of skimming through 5,000 emails a week. Would it be as fun as the first one? Would it be as popular? Our readers might not be alone in thinking the way they do, but could they in another phrase beloved of regular correspondents go on and on?

Fortunately, the answer this time is an equally decisive Yes. To an extent, we have been lucky with events this past year (these letters were collated between October 2009 and August 2010): the departures of Gordon Brown, Tony Hayward and Jonathan Ross have provided much fodder for our letter-writers cannons; as has the arrival of Chris Evans. Popular chapters on politics, television, foreign affairs, crime and punishment, and domestic dystopia return in entirely new forms, while in a change from Am I Alone in Thinking? there is an entire section on sport this time round, sprinkled with observations on the elasticity of John Terrys and Tiger Woodss trousers, Andy Murrays facial hair and, of course, the vuvuzela.

Elsewhere, fans of M, the correspondent who believes himself to be the head of MI6, issuing orders from an internet caf in Bristol, will be delighted to see that his thoughts on world events pop up again. My favourite is his memo suggesting that Tony Blair who vies here with Ed Balls, Peter Mandelson and Harriet Harman for being the target of the most hilarious bile played a part in the fox attack on two young twins.

It has certainly been an eventful year. But our wonderful correspondents, as quick and as able to turn their hand to letters about geopolitics as their gardens, have never been constrained by the vagaries of the news cycle. I should have had more faith in them when I was doubtful about repeating the task of editing a new collection of unpublished letters. It has been more fun than I could have imagined. To them, my grateful thanks as well as to Christopher Howse, the letters editor; Dorothy, Matilda and Alex on the letters desk; Matt Pritchett; Caroline Buckland; Richard Preston; and everyone at Aurum.

I could go on but I will leave that to our readers who really can. I hope Im not alone in thinking they have been on cracking form of late.

Iain Hollingshead

The Daily Telegraph

London SW1

August 2010