The lost art of letterheads

One of the pleasures of the letters from unhappy ministers to the Prime Minister last week (though not, presumably, for the recipient) was the assortment of letterheads from Whitehall departments we saw in the papers. One was from Nadhim Zahawi, on HM Treasury writing paper. It’s a fair bet that most of Mr Z’s communication these days is by email or text or WhatsApp. Yet when it came to calling for Boris Johnson to resign, nothing would do but a letter with the Treasury insignia to indicate that the writer was staying where he was.

There are so few opportunities nowadays to show off a letterhead that they have become a special medium. In a charity shop the other day I bought up some blank correspondence cards from a gentleman called Sir John Cecil-Williams of Hampstead Heath, simply for the pleasure of the formal type and layout. You had the title and name, so even if the sender signed himself just ‘John’, you would know who it was – useful for those with rubbish signatures.