THE very pleasant surprise came as a result of attempting to organise ever-expanding files. There it was in an eight-inch pile of long forgotten correspondence wedged in a dusty corner between files and bound together with rubber bands.

Letters from publicity departments of assorted Hollywood studios involving film releases . . . an enthusiastic offer to consider becoming the State of Ohio's first woman Director of Tourism presented by its current director about to retire . . . a note from the travel editor, a Fred Astaire dance-alike, lamenting he was off to Australia on assignment and would miss our usual dance marathon at the Society of American Travel Writers' Finland convention . . . an offer to join the editorial staff of . . . yet another to go to Washington and work for the Discover America Travel Organisation.

Quite a collection, no wonder they were saved. All very vintage, bearing 1970s postmarks early in my writing career.

Then there it was, a dramatic postcard of historic ancient St. Catherine's Monastery deep in Egypt's Sinai. Not just one postcard, but a tied packet of a dozen cards and letters written in March 1972 and sent to my mother and brother during my first visit there.

Now three visits (and that many decades later) to this very magic place, it was interesting to read a daily account of that first solo adventure to the then Israeli-occupied Sinai with gun emplacements much in evidence. My enthusiasm and excitement leapt off the page.

"Dear Mom and Hig ? It has been a very exciting day ? and a long one. Up at 5.15 a.m., got to Arkia air terminal at 5.45. We were individually searched, my Alitalia bag taken from me and I was frisked and some kind of machine like a hand vacuum passed over me. All these precautions are necessary since we fly over to Eliat, practically above Aquaba and are always near either Jordan, Saudi Arabia or Egypt. They're not taking any chances.

"Sinai is different from any desert I have ever seen ? huge rocky pinnacles like giant temples of the Egyptians rise sheer out of sand dunes. They are jagged and spiny as the Tetons and the road there is so rough it takes 45 minutes to drive 12 miles. The country is even too wild for sagebrush.

"Twelve monks now live in a place built for 1,500. And I didn't find the skull-room at all unnerving. Some sit on shelves, but most are just piled in big mounds, separate from the bodies. The icon collection here surpasses the famous collection I saw at St. John's Monastery in Patmos, Greece. It is extraordinary. We were there only one and a half hours which flew like five minutes!"

Tension experienced in the Golan Heights en route to Mount Herman to write about this unusual ski resort as a correspondent for was also obvious. I'd been given dire warnings before leaving home and now quite unexpectedly found myself in a war zone with attack planes zooming overhead and the area on full alert.

Signs in Hebrew lined the roadside. "What do they say?" I asked my government guide, a former Moshe Dayan wartime aide. "They say don't pull off the road . . . the area beside it is mined." Very reassuring.

"At this point we pull up behind a jeep-like vehicle of local Arabs in tribal dress who are staring at our vehicle which carried a very visible government emblem. One leans out the back and tosses a canister at our vehicle.

"Oh no, this is it, a grenade! As it rolls under the car, I wait for the explosion which happily does not come. What was it? My driver accelerates ahead at breakneck speed and radios someone to stop the other vehicle for interrogation."

"What I didn't realise is that the mountain is only across the border from Syria and Lebanon. All the fighting two weeks ago was just a mile from here. The army is everywhere. They claim El Fettah guerrillas only come out at night and then to shoot down a few soldiers travelling alone in sneak attacks."

"It was not on my official itinerary, I had no map and certainly hadn't been told I was being taken to a war zone. But several people mentioned it had a new chair lift and was in a beautiful area. When I asked if it was safe, the Jewish people who run the Ayelet Hashahar Kibbutz Guest House said certainly. Not until I got there did the whole story unfold."

of that batch of letters got me to thinking. In this fast-paced, jet-propelled world of e-mail, faxes and telephone communication, this kind of written word has all but disappeared. And it's really a pity. Except for the occasional postcard, few readers' descendants will discover an exciting bundle of correspondence in some old bureau or attic corner a century from now.

Yes, that fax and e-mail fulfil their purpose and do a necessary job. But they're sterile looking, no zing, nor do they carry the same excitement as a bundle of airmail envelopes with very collectible and picturesque stamps. Envelopes that carry distinctive logos of such destinations as Tel Aviv Hilton, Ayelet Hashahar Kibbutz, or American Colony Hotel, former pashas' palace where I spent a week.

Perhaps I'm especially conscious of the written word's value in remembering our past ? not only because I'm a journalist, but because of what happened in my own family and what it's meant to subsequent historic-minded people.

Starting in 1844 onwards, my great grandfather and his eldest son, both educators, wrote letters back to Europe explaining not only how family were doing, but about every aspect of life in America. Because uncertain mail delivery took months in those days, he actually wrote copies of letters sent. If no response was received within a reasonable time, the letter was sent again. Today, copies of those letters are in our local libraries and historical society and continue to be quoted in reference to pioneer times. They cover everything from economics of that era to politics of the Civil War. Anecdotes bring lifestyles of that time alive and make me feel I actually know that great grandfather who built the historic home in which I live.

This is a slice of history repeated around the world, thanks to letter and diary writers who have done the same since ancient times. Many a journalist's career was launched in just such a way, whether it was Winston Churchill sending home bulletins from the Boer War or Anne Frank writing her diary in the secrecy of a Dutch attic.

Imagine your family's excitement if they discovered letters in the attic written by a grandfather who fought in the trenches during World War One . . . notes smuggled between ancestors separated on different Barbados plantations . . . possibly youthful impressions of a family member travelling through Europe on a "grand tour" after finishing university overseas just before the outbreak of World War Two.

Letters sent home by soldiers during America's Civil War formed an important part of Public Television's series on that war, bringing personal experiences alive. The same is true whether covering the epic journey of Lewis and Clark commemorated this year or the relationship between Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson revealed in their lifetime exchange of letters, as well as Jefferson's letters from Paris. No author's fictionalised account of the California Gold Rush is as exciting as letters written home about my Great Grandfather Benjamin Emerson's great adventures there. He was one of only a small percentage lucky enough to discover gold and tales of his self-reliant spirit are remarkable as any Hollywood production.

But even more than that, letters from the past capture a certain mood and somehow bring people and places alive. While attached to the American Embassy in Madrid, Washington Irving wrote vivid impressions remembered today.

Twain certainly excelled at doing the same. So did Herman Melville, Robert Louis Stevenson and Francis Parkman. Parkman's tales retracing one of America's great pioneer trails in 1846 were eventually compiled in capturing its memories for ever. It's a long and impressive list . . . letters of John Smith describing struggles of the early Jamestown Settlement . . . notations from William Bradford concerning Plymouth Plantation in 1620. Bosworth, Johnson, Alastair Cooke's (heard in Bermuda on the BBC; he has just announced his retirement at the age of 95) . . . Benjamin Franklin's letters to his wife from Paris. And most certainly epistles of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament.

As a compulsive long-distance caller, I long ago decided hearing your family's voice when you're travelling far away is worth whatever the cost. And before calling cards became available at moderate costs, price of calls from places like Turkey, Tasmania, Hong Kong, New Guinea and radio rooms of earlier cruise ships around the world was pretty staggering. Especially when everyone you're calling is a conversationalist and you're not the silent type either!

Nowadays, because it's so easy to call home, we all tend to do that more often, bypassing letter- and sometimes even postcard-writing. And that's really a pity. If the telephone had been invented during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln's compassionate letter of sympathy to the mother who tragically lost her sons would not exist.

Who's to say some future generation won't value your letters or cards sent from distant lands just as highly? Doesn't every child, now grown up, have an old treasure box that includes postcards from some favourite relative?

STILL do . . . a fabulous uncle, who spoiled us all during his too short life, travelled extensively as a busy executive and stayed at glamorous hotels like the Los Angeles Biltmore. He sent cards from all of them to his little niece, even taking time to draw characters waving from the window of his room. Sounds simplistic, doesn't it? But this extraordinary uncle, who died of a sudden heart attack at aged 48, is still remembered by us with flowers on his mausoleum crypt marking special occasions. As someone who moved in top corporate circles, he made time to share his travels with a very interested child.

Just recently I also discovered a collection of letters sent to me by my mother when I was off travelling. When I arrived at the Eden Roc in Rhodes, Greece, there it was waiting with news from home. This was 1971 when letter writing still superseded telephoning.

The addresses and contents are wonderful memories . . . Hotel Negresco, Nice, France ? old until September 11, 1968 . . . Armathwaite Hall Hotel in England's Lake District . . . Hotel Drei Moren, Augsburg, Germany ? hold until January 30, 1969 . . . American Express, Paris, France ? Hold until September 30, 1968 . . . Clausings Posthotel, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany ? hold until January 31, 1969 . . . Tel Aviv Hilton, Israel ? hold until March 22, 1972. All are even more treasured today than then.

It's obvious my family are very into communicating! Over a century earlier, my maternal great grandmother turned 16 and on that occasion was gifted with a beautiful, elegantly decorated box of hand-written notes from friends and family. All exactly the same size, they had started out on fancy plain white cards and each been personally embellished with hand-painted flowers, even elaborate embroidery using human hair and fine coloured thread in museum-quality decorations. These were presented to her at the castle where she was born. Such reminders of a more leisured era deserve framing, but instead are carefully preserved in a fireproof bank vault.

So many people dream about seeing the world, but aren't able to. However, their enthusiasm for distant places remains and they love getting postcards. Next time you're off somewhere exciting, why not remember them?

Ever since I started travelling, I've developed a mailing list of people in hospitals, nursing homes, alone without surviving family and they love to get such mail. One has filled a couple scrapbooks with them and delights in showing them to me when I stop in for a visit. Still another of moderate means very ceremoniously sends me a birthday card each year with a $5 cheque "for postage from all those wonderful places you share with me".

Of all the people I know, I think Bermuda's own Tommy Aitchison wins the prize for maintaining the liveliest letter writing schedule, keeping in touch with more than 300 friends around the world. That's a challenging achievement, and certainly a very worthy and rewarding one.

In one sense, writing a newspaper travel column is rather like sending a long letter home. Its intent is to acquaint readers with what you've seen, share the flavour and mood of a place that might also interest them.

4 How my ancestor lost the Presidency