Y is for

endings of letters, yours sincerely is dhiso yn lel in Cornish, and in Welsh yn ddiffuant 

How to end a letter, was something I learnt quickly when I started writing letters; not surprising as my Mum used to teach typewriting and office skills to a Malayan School and occasionally I was allowed to go if I behaved myself.

I don't have any photos of the school, I have vague memories of a corrugated tin roof which when it rained sounded so loud that you couldn't hear yourself think. The walls were open but there was a large veranda surrounding the building so it was very much an outside building which benefitted from the air flow (when it flowed). The typewriters were old fashioned, 6 years later I was doing Business studies at school on an Imperial 66 which seemed similar but I am not sure.

I can still remember being amazed at the sheer speed of typing that Mum managed to demonstrate and the local ladies would smile politely when she announced that with practice they would also be able to attain such speeds.

As a child, we would always write thank you letters to relatives for presents, or in the case of grandparents just keeping in touch and it is nice to receive a handwritten letter but this days it happens less and less. 

Even with the modern equivalent of e-mail's it is important to recognise they can be seen as official  business communication and therefore some rules need to apply such as formal endings but regretfully it seems that even this is being eroded and the standard of some e-mails leave a lot to be desired.

So today, if you email someone or write to someone in an official capacity think about the content and format as it might make someone's day.