Alan Cleaver

I spend my days walking old postal paths in Britain that were once walked by rural postmen and women. In the evening, I handwrite letters.

Happy #PostboxSaturday, fellow postbox spotters! Delighted to go on an actual Postman’s Path up in the Lake District as found in Alan Cleaver’s lovely book, The Postal Paths. It even included a trip on a narrow-gauge railway… 😁📮📗🥾🚂

"The routine use of laptops in lessons hinders rather than helps learning" - Why a UK school is moving away from screens and returning to pen-and-paper - share.google/Kmxq8EvSfrXV...

I'm thinking of treating Lesley to a night out 😉

I feature in my book (The Postal Paths) the path over Shap in #Cumbria: A beautiful but tough 15 mile route. Now Shap's BirchwoodCafe has created, The Postman's Challenge, along the route. The website includes route details and GPX data. Walk or run it! thepostmanschallenge.com

It is World Postcard Day and amazingly a painted postcard I entered in a Winsor & Newton competition has been chosen for a postcard exhibition at London's Saatchi Gallery! The exhibition runs from October 1 to the 11th at the Saatchi Gallery, London, SW3 4RY. #WorldPostcardDay

Artist Percy Kelly died in 1993. I call him the 'patron saint' of painted letters as his handwritten letters were works of art in their own right. If you have 2 or 3 hundred quid to spare, some are coming up for auction in a couple of weeks... www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auctio...

The chess section of my library 😉

A charming packhorse bridge on the Postman's Path from Langwathby to Glassonby in Cumbria. Once walked by Laal Tommy Post. Now, judging by the state of the path, hardly ever walked by anyone 😥 (Laal - dialect for 'little').

Some good news for Scottish folk, particularly those in #Dumfries... I'll be talking about Scotland's postal paths at Thomas Tosh in Thornhill on Wednesday, September 2nd. And @scotways.com l will be getting much praise of course for their work in this regard... www.thomastosh.com/events/2026/...

Lesley and I had to walk out of The Odyssey after half an hour as it was just too loud. And we'd turned our hearing aids off! I thought it was just us getting old but I'm reassured by Google guessing the question before I had finished asking it... So it's not just us?

Call me paranoid, but last week Elon Musk fired a rocket at the moon. This week, the moon is blocking out the sun and thousands of meteors will rain down on earth. We're at war with the moon people aren't we?

There are not many sunken lanes in Cumbria - they are more of a Dorset thing - but ancient Seacross Lonning at Wythop Mill is one of Cumbria's finest. In the current heatwave, the hazel tunnel offers a cool walk. (Lonning = dialect for lane).

Record of deaths in the village of Lamplugh, Cumbria between 1656 and 1663 shows: * 4 Frightened to death by fairies * 7 Bewitched * 1 led into pond by a Will-O'-The-Wisp * 2 Died of cold in the church You see, archives can be fun! share.google/CJLUig2CUimW...

I was in Grasmere today when Will Smith from @samreadbookseller.bsky.social ran out and grabbed me kicking and screaming into his shop to sign some books. I signed about 50 and then he clarified he wanted me to sign MY book, The Postal Paths. There's also one rare unsigned book left in the shop 😁

My new short story Fox Wedding is now online on the @irishtimes.com website Hope you like it. www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

It's a long-established principle that a UK footpath doesn't have to go anywhere. Most go from A to B, but they can also go from A to ...not A. Many, like this one, served an old quarry or mine. Gov inspectors have often declined requests to close a footpath simply because it doesn't go anywhere.

Going up the postal path. Then up the garden path!

The 'Spittie Whol' in a wall in Caldbeck, Cumbria - spit in it saying "Once in the hole I spit to guard me safe from fascinating charms", then don't look back to ensure good fortune. It's possibly an old plague stone now set in a drystone wall. Coins are also left in it by villagers.

Sadly, The Postal Paths didn't win The Lakeland Book Of The Year last night but it was an honour to be shortlisted. Sarah Hall with her book Helm was the worthy winner. So I shall be standing in the Clacton by-election and we'll let the people decide who should really have won!

That's timely! I'm preparing my talk on handwritten letters for Tuesday (June 30) at Tullie House in Carlisle and Mozart's Letter Duet has just played on the radio! tullie.org.uk/events/cumbr...

On the hottest June day on record in the UK, we all need a walk down Boggle Lonning in Cumbria

Do join me!

Oh my God! Did someone put Trump in charge of water quality at Whitehaven?!

"That which takes longer to arrive stays longer in the heart" - The Healing Power of Korean Letter Writing by Juhee Mun

"Never, never, dear Madam (N.B. this remark is addressed to ladies only: no man would ever do such a thing), put “Wednesday”, simply, as the date! That way madness lies.” - Lewis Carroll, Eight or Nine Wise Words about Letter-Writing (1890).

(Nerd alert!): This is interesting - Royal Mail's special issue stamps (the ones with pretty pictures) featuring waterfalls have just been released and include 2nd Class stamps. Royal Mail stopped doing 2nd Class specials months ago, so I wonder why they have now reintroduced them?

My thanks to @bookendscarlisle.bsky.social for giving me a 'job' today as a bookseller as part of #IndieBookshopWeek. And which book did I recommend to customers (apart from my own)? It could only be... @ronanhession.bsky.social

I'm chuffed to say that my book, The Postal Paths, has been shortlisted for this year's Lakeland Book Of The Year award. The awards evening is July 7th - but I'm up against some tough and worthy opposition!

I'll be giving a talk on Cumbrian Postal Paths on June 30th (Tullie House, Carlisle), coinciding with an exhibition of the work of late artist Percy Kelly. Kelly is known for his 'painted letters/envelopes' and I'll be also talking about those. Do come along... tullie.org.uk/events/cumbr...

"There is a charm in footing slow across a silent plain" - Keats

Just visiting this lovely pub in Rugby, Warwickshire. Guess what it's called? Go on, take a wild guess 😁

This delightful photo was taken in June 1970 by A.Michael Davies. He sent it me after reading my book, The Postal Paths, and reading about my walk along the 7-mile path on the Isle of Harris, Scotland. It's a rugged coastal path but postman Duncan MacInnes still wore with pride his uniform.

"To the dear memory of a little child" - the beautifully touching 1883 stained glass memorial by parents to the son they lost aged four months. Caldbeck church, Cumbria UK #StainedGlassSunday

The UK has many footpaths that were once used as 'corpse roads' to take the dead to the mother church for burial. Dales Countryside Museum in North Yorkshire still has a funeral bier apparently used to carry the corpse on the Keld to Grinton corpse road...

The golden age of mail delivery before we invented drones

Proof handwriting is beneficial for you...

On this day in 1840, the first letters with Penny Black stamps were posted. Today, the UK postal service is in a poor state, but let's keep posting letters - and making them special. #PennyBlackDay

"Illustration is art with a job to do" - Sir Quentin Blake

"Come, let us follow by the woodland way, Come, dearest, let us go a-violeting." You won't find violeting on Google, but it was a British custom a century ago of going for a walk to pick a few violets and display them in a small vase in your hallway.

Do you keep a diary? Are you doing anything interesting on May 12th? Are you doing anything mundane? Then send your diary for that day to the UK Mass Observation Project.. share.google/neq7MlL7G40v...

Congratulations to Richard Collett on publication day of Along The Borders - a study of those boundaries that define us, divide us, and downright frustrate us.. www.penguin.co.uk/books/462381...

My thanks to @fellranger.bsky.social for introducing me to artist Ronin Tanner (1904-1988). This is Wren and Primroses used in the book, Wiltshire Village.

It’s #PennyBlackDay on 6th May! Do join us in celebrating this incredible invention! More information via the link… 🥳🎩📮🎉 thehandwrittenletterappreciationsociety.org/help-celebra...

My entry into the Winsor & Newton #mailart competition! See their website for details of how you can enter your picture postcard. www.winsornewton.com/pages/global...

Watch out for a pack of free watercolor postcards in selected art shops. If you wish you can send one (post free) with a painting of your own to Winsor and Newton with the chance of winning a prize - and there are 15 more to send to friends and family.

It's the first anniversary of the publication of my book, The Postal Paths (thankyou all!). It's also the 61st anniversary of the 8-mile Pennine Way, so here's a picture of the Keld to Tan Hill Inn postman's path on the Pennine Way being walked in the 1930s by Jack Rukin..