IN some ways it’s rather reassuring that David Cameron sends apparently impulsive and informal mobile phone texts.

Comforting in a way, but it does show a degree of human frailty and I can’t imagine Harold Macmillan would have indulged in such informality.

Apparently when texting Rebekah Brooks, the former News International chief executive, he signed off LOL, believing this to mean “lots of love” although he desisted when informed by the recipient that it actually meant “laugh out loud”.

In my youth all this was done in long hand on Basildon Bond and most correspondence would finish Yours sincerely, faithfully, truly etc, or in cases of extreme subservience “Your obedient servant”.

There were also, of course, the coyly named love letters and these were usually signed off using a code. SWALK was the most common, meaning “sealed with a loving kiss”.

HOLLAND was more sophisticated and translated as “hope our love lasts and never dies”.

Far more racy was BURMA but a translation would not be appropriate for a family newspaper.

VJ Connor, Bishop Auckland.