Falling in love with writing letters again at the Woodford Folk Festival Lettering House

Streets of Your Town

With all the agitation and conflict in the world at the moment - I thought what we need on Streets of Your Town to start this year - is whimsy. Something to make us smile and stir a sense of childlike awe in us again.

And so off I meandered in Mildred the Cantankerous Kombi to the Woodford Folk Festival. It’s on every year in the foothills of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast hinterland helping hippies and hippies at heart to spread harmony and see in the New Year with three minutes of silent contemplation.

The festival attracts more than 130,000 people to the pop-up town of Woodfordia on the site of a former dairy farm, making it the largest gathering of artists and musicians in Australia.

Amidst this glorious muddy throng of people and throbbing music is a contemplative corner of Woodfordia called the Lettering House.

It’s where festival goers can go back to times gone by, and connect to their fellow Woodfordians the old fashioned, non-digital way - by writing a letter or typing it on an old fashioned type-writer.

A team of Woodfordian posties search out the identify of each letter recipient, often based on the vaguest of addresses and identifies, then get on their bikes to find them and deliver the letter by hand, or notify the recipient by text that they have a letter to pick up.

So sit back, and let's ponder the magic of the Lettering House through the words of Postal Clerk Aaron, who explains how they spread their little bit of writing wonder through the festival.

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