I remember the joy of getting post. When I was younger, if I got post it could only be a present, a birthday card – once, I’d ordered a heart-shaped piece of balsa wood with my name burnt into it – so, that. It was great to get post. (I’d include a picture, but I put the balsa heart into a memory box in 1998 and promptly lost the key. Sorry about that)
These days, there’s a better than average chance that my post contains at least one bill, so the excitement has rather worn off. But there is an exception, one that will get me running to the letterbox and bouncing on the balls of my feet while I wait for the postman to park: theatre tickets that come in the post.
Just a glimpse of them, standing on a bookshelf, stuck to the fridge, peeking out from behind a potted plant, the anticipation builds for as many weeks as it takes for the show to start and it’s just amazing. The memory sparks, and I’m there again.
And even when it’s over and the seats have been vacated and the bar is drunk dry, when there’s a paperback left under the seat to ensure a stranger reads me, and I’m back inside my house, I still have the tickets to flip through and remember…
This year, I left a copy of Sex, Death & Canapés at the Noel Coward Theatre on St Martin’s Lane.
Petrina Binney - Author 