The Chains of Friendship.

When I was a kid in school at least once a year chain letters would appear. There must have been a season for them as there was for conkers, whip and top, skipping ropes, hula hoops and hopscotch. You would be given a letter, hand-written of course, saying that you had to copy said letter out six times and give it to friends, who then had to do the same and so on, ad infinitum. If you broke the chain, the letter warned, dire and dreadful consequences would follow. Members of your family would fall ill and possibly die. They would lose all their money. Plague and pestilence all round. 

I never showed these letters to my mother. She was one of those people who always bought something off the gypsies who came around selling lucky heather and similar tat. She truly believed in the evil eye. And belief, of course, made it work. 

Sometimes the letters were less fatally threatening. They included six names and addresses, usually in far-flung places, and asked you to send a postcard to the person whose name appeared at the top of the list. You then copied the letter out, again six times, omitting the name at the top of the list and adding yours to the bottom of the list. Within weeks, it promised, you would receive myriad postcards from unknown and possibly exotic places around the world. 

It never worked! My postcard collection never materialised. I was a lot better off with the international pen-friends organised by my Spanish teacher; she not only organised pen-friends in Spain but in Rumania and other places I knew little about. (She also sold us Gideon bibles in Spanish, French and German and tried her best to persuade us to learn Esperanto with her after school. Would she be allowed to sell us bible nowadays? I wonder.)

I was reminded of all of this when I received an email recently inviting me to send a favourite poem to someone I didn't know but whose name appeared in the email. Having done that, I was to forward that email, minus the name and email address of the poem recipient and plus my own name and email address, to 20 friends. I would then receive a poem every few days via the electronic mail. A poetry chain mail. It was sent to me by a friend from the poetry group I sporadically attend at Stalybridge station buffet bar. 

Did I want to do this? Well, not really but the sender was a friend so I decided to have a go. Did I even have 20 poetry-loving friends whose email address I had? Did I even really have 20 poetry-loving friends? The answer was certainly no to the first of those question and probably also no to the second. The friends from the poetry group at Stalybridge are not on my mailing list. Besides I always feel like something of a fraud when I attend the group. So many of them go to lots of poetry groups, attend writers' and poetry workshops, enter poetry competitions and have work published. I go along because I have always scribbled bits and pieces and I enjoy the feedback. Besides it's a nice social occasion. 

So I confessed to the sender, who has an MA in creative writing and is currently doing a PhD on something to do with women poets, that I had been unable to forward it to 20 people but that I had done my best. OK. So far so good. 

Now I am receiving emails from friends saying they can't join in because they are too busy, don't ever participate in chain letters, don't actually have any favourite poems, have just moved house, want to spend time with their grandchildren or just plain can't be bothered! 

And suddenly I feel like that kid at school waiting for dire prognostications to befall me and not receiving myriad postcards from obscure destinations around the world. 

And I have yet to receive a single poem electronically!