A first trip ‘round the world, part 34

Communications with France were few and far between when we were in Australia. 

Even though we never thought of using it in our wildest dreams, phone would have cost us a fortune that we didn’t have or were willing to part with, maybe telegrams in case of emergency and of course air-mail correspondence. 

There was a tool, though that was even cheaper than a postcard or an airmail letter, and it was the good, old aerogram. 

An aerogram, or aérogramme in French, was a thin lightweight piece of foldable and gummed paper for writing a letter for transit via airmail, in which the letter and envelope were one and the same. 

Enclosure were forbidden in these light letters, which were sent abroad at a preferential rate. Printed warnings existed to say that an enclosure would cause the mail to go at the higher letter rate. I don’t remember how much such a missive cost, but it was pretty cheap. 

Gérard remembers that he never received any mail from France, which he put on the account of the controversial nuclear tests in French Polynesia that were opposed by the Australian authorities and might have led to a stoppage of incoming correspondence from that country. 

We could however successfully send mail to France whether postcards, regular letter, and of course aerograms that our friends and families had finally discovered thanks to us !