Rosemary McLeod: Poison pen letter

Hordes of people must have blessed the arrival of the internet so they could unleash their ugly side, the one they hide behind back-slapping bonhomie.
There's something so creepily covert in the noms-de-plume they use as they slide in and out of other people's online lives, indulging in duels with people they'll never meet, who neither know nor care that they exist, firing spit-balls of insult without fear of consequences. A quick clamp of the fangs, a squirt of venom, and they're off to the everyday world where they cultivate convincing personae and probably even use mouthwash.
Yet surely the poison-pen letter, that ancient art form of the nasty, hasn't lost its allure quite yet. The internet may pass nastiness at speed, but there must be exquisite delayed gratification in putting pen to paper, folding the paper and sealing the envelope, buying the stamp and posting your malice to land in someone's letterbox and ruin their day.
I guess you then imagine the letter being opened, the gasps, and hopefully the tears shed, and you shout yourself a cream doughnut in delight. Sure, you could get caught if you're sloppy with fingerprints or stupidly sign the thing, but you've had your moment.
Currently there's the example of the man who wrote such an upsetting letter to a grieving family member of slain Feilding farmer Scott Guy while the police investigation was under way. Most people would commiserate with them. Dianne Bullock's daughter is Guy's widow, but there are people who'll see in such family catastrophes only the chance to inflict more pain.
Richard Johnson was sentenced to 300 hours' community service last week, and ordered to pay Mrs Bullock $1500 for emotional harm. They had once worked together, and didn't get on. You can see why.
There are many variations on the nasty theme. I've been especially struck by how many nasty letter writers quote the Bible at you, in wobbly capital letters. It rather suggests that there's a corner of the writers' lives where they appear to be morally upright, which they use as a kind of mental insurance that they're good people. The capital letters would be part of the delayed payoff; it takes so much longer to write that way, and capitals look so impressive in red ballpoint, like vehement bloodstains.
Older people used to mutter darkly that there'd be no lack of volunteers to run death camps in this country like the Nazis did in the last war. They were probably right. Give some people a decent uniform and they'll soon master the goose-step. Our civilised, well-mannered selves can be shallow. You need only cast your mind back to school for memories of that.
I don't mean just the kids. There were bullies among teachers who relished using sarcasm and intimidation - if not outright violence.
They had boring lives, I certainly hope, going home to bedsits where they heated small cans of baked beans over a solitary gas ring while cracking their knuckles. I've often wondered what Miss Green did with all the tubes of Sheer Genius makeup she gleefully confiscated. She must have had a lifetime's supply.
Poison pen letters are bullying, but with focus. Bullying is a blunt instrument by comparison - like the girl in my class who imprisoned another girl under the desks every lunch time, or the torture sessions of a school friend of mine who'd run at other girls with her long fingernails aimed at their eyes. Friend? Of course. Only a fool would annoy a girl with talons like that.
If we'd had cellphones we'd have been just as nasty - and unaware of how truly hurtful we were - as kids can be today. But give credit where it's due: the poison-pen letter is too sophisticated an art form for juniors to master. It demands the full malice of maturity.