A Commodore Format editor sent this letter to a bullied school kid and it’ll give you all the feels

Last week, we had a message from a CF fan called Mark Thompson.

“I’ve been going through my old stuff and came across a personal letter from Andy Hutchinson, the Commodore Format editor, in an envelope marked 20th December 1993. It was in reply to a letter I’d sent about being taken the mick out of in school because I still owned a C64 then. I just wanted to show it to you so you can see how nice it was.”

This letter was around the time Mayhem was released and only Lemmings was yet to drop – after that, no more commercial games. The previous year had seen an unfortunate conversion of Streetfighter 2 to C64 which could and should’ve been way better, but Mark thinks that’s what he was being taken the mick out of for (you know the score – being compared to the SNES version and ya da). Anyway. We thought we’d share the letter with you as well, because its kindness has really stayed with us.

“It made me feel that they cared which I think is more than can be said about a lot of things these days”, says Mark. “It’s testimony to the quality of the people who worked there and the mag shows that.”

If you’ve got anything similar, let us know – we’d love to share it. It stands out as a great example of a time that’s now gone, when readers felt close enough to the writers to do this – and have it reciprocated. CF