In Competition No. 3252, you were invited to write a letter of condolence on the mis-fortune of an acquaintance which, intentionally or not, would have the effect of lowering rather than raising the spirits.
An example of how not to write a condolence letter, according to New York-based funeral director Amy Cunningham, was Nancy Mitford’s upbeat ending to a letter to her cousin, who had just lost her husband: ‘It’s nice that Decca is coming over for a long visit.
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