Sending news home

Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.

I called home from the airport while waiting for my delayed flight. The screen showed my father sitting at the kitchen table with the cat behind him. He could see the departure board over my shoulder and asked whether the delay would affect my connection. We discussed the alternative route while I looked it up on another screen. Within ten minutes, he knew where I was, what had happened and when I might arrive. I could hear the kettle in his kitchen more clearly than the announcement at my own gate.

Later, the airport connection failed. My next message remained unsent for nearly an hour, and my father called twice before it went through. The ease of the earlier conversation had created an expectation that I would always be reachable. When we finally spoke, there was more to explain about the silence than about the journey. I sent a photograph of my boarding pass, then another message when I sat down. None of this was difficult, but each small update appeared to promise the next one.

On arrival, I had already told the family most of what had happened. The delayed plane was familiar news before I collected my bag. I appreciated being able to ask for help and change plans together, yet noticed that I had spent several pauses reporting the trip rather than looking around. Immediate contact offered reassurance and practical assistance. It also made an ordinary gap in reception look like an event that required an account of its own.

Source B: an original letter in a nineteenth-century voice. This is a period-voice simulation, not an archival document.

Dear Mother, this letter will travel by the next vessel leaving the port, which the agent expects to sail in four days. I reached my lodging yesterday after a rough passage and am quite well. By the time you read this, the events I describe will already belong to a different part of my journey. I must therefore give you enough particulars to make the account useful without knowing which questions you will wish to ask. I have enclosed the address at which I expect to remain for the next month.

The landlord has lent me paper and directed me to the office where outgoing letters are collected. I shall leave this there tomorrow in case the vessel departs earlier than expected. There is no means of knowing precisely when it will reach you, nor shall I know immediately that it has arrived. Your reply may cross another letter of mine on the sea. If my plans change, I shall write again, though the newer news may not necessarily reach you before the older account has caused you to make arrangements.

I have set down the route, the names of the people I met and the condition of my baggage, because I know these things will concern you. I should much prefer to hear your questions and answer them at once. Still, the time spent composing this has made the last few days seem less confused. I can distinguish an inconvenience that frightened me briefly from one that truly altered the journey. Pray do not imagine a disaster in every interval between letters; the intervals depend more upon ships than upon my willingness to write.

Use details from both sources to summarise what you understand about the differences in the writers’ ability to communicate news of their journeys.