Postcards from the Past | Postcards to the Future

Tread softly, don’t forget, we do this for you.

Love,

Your Ancestors

On Wednesday 3rd December Paul Evans and Jeff Trask created this unusual encounter for the NCCPE Engage Conference in Bristol. Dressed as characters from the past and from the future (Jeff wore a medieval costume, the identity of the future postman remains something of a mystery), our time-travelling postmen invited conference delegates to write postcards either from the past to the present or from the present to the future*. Around forty highly original, imaginative (and some very moving) postcards were written, and the quality of the handwriting was judged as exemplary by our postman.

Please see below for a few examples, chosen more or less at random from our postbags.

 

Hello Humans!

Be excellent to each other – and don’t eat the red Smarties!

To the future!

Learn from the past & our mistakes. Be open and emotional, responsive & communicative. When aliens come, be their friends!

I hope everything is good for you & that we didn’t mess it up too much.

Charlotte X

We used to enjoy watching people kick balls into nets …

a team called Arsenal were the best at this.

It is OK to be radical

We’ve trodden too heavily on the earth, and forgotten to live in more equitable ways.

We’ve much to learn from the past in terms of the danger of walking heavily and the benefits of walking lightly.

We’ve one earth – engage with it wisely.

The university no longer exists – it becomes public.

Don’t trust the English!

When they come to visit your country to ‘help you out’ they actually plan to stay for 800 years and make you eat potatoes!!!

Dear the Future,

Sorry for breaking the environment and the healthcare system!

Hope you’re all OK!

P.S. Here’s a drawing of a tree in case you don’t know what one looks like X

To whom it may concern,

Let it be noted that you have not been forgotten and we are still learning from the relics you left behind and these experiences bring new engagements and relationships for the future!

Reality TV is a bad idea – don’t do it!

Don’t repeat the same mistakes generations before you have made.

*Even allowing for seasonal disruptions in the temporal continuum, we are confident that all of these postcards will have reached their destination in time for Christmas.