Penfriends

[DSJ]

When I was a child, a long time ago, most young people had one or more penfriends. Magazines & comics often ran a penfriend matching service.

I was in my first year at secondary school when all the girls in my form were linked up with girls at a certain school in Stockholm, Sweden. The idea behind it was that we could help the Swedish girls with their English & form interesting friendships at the same time. I met my penfriend several times. I was invited to stay with her family in Stockholm when I was 19, she and her family came over to my wedding a couple of years later. Sadly, she died last November.

I also had other penfriends in various parts of the UK. Some I got to meet, some I never met. Several I still correspond with. One of my penfriends, Pat, is coming to stay tomorrow for three weeks. She & I were matched up through our membership of the Dickie Valentine Fan Club in the 1950s. We have been firm friends ever since.

Do any of you still write to penfriends and, if so, for how long have you been corresponding?

[chokkie]

I have two currrent penfriends. One of them I write proper letters to (and post them) - I used to work with her eons ago, when I was working in London. Oh lost count of the years we've been writing. The other is a lady in Auckland New Zealand, I have been writing to her for many years (but not quite as long as the first p.f.), we used to write "real" letters, but now e.mail each other regularly. I saw a letter from her in, I think, the Sainsbury magazine, asking for a penfriend in the UK. I wrote back to the mag, and she chose me to correspond with.

Oh actually, there are more. We are still in touch, by e.mail with a young Portuguese girl who we first got to know when she stayed at our house as a student, we're still in regular touch with her (by e.mail). And we also keep in regular touch with a Germany guy, who again stayed at our home as a student, but now works for a discount supermarket chain in Europe and Asia.

I have also recently got back in touch with a girl who I used to play with when we were schoolgirls. At that time, she lived around the corner from my aunt and uncle, but she has now moved to Northampton. We got back in touch quite recently, although we did know that some of her first cousins are related by marriage to some of my first cousins.

[ttfn]

I remember Dickie so well - we were on holiday in Wales and heard of his death on the car radio - oh such memories from so far back. Only had 1 pen friend - it didn't last long. I struggled so hard to put all my writing into French - she would reply and after 2 or 3 lines reverted to her mother tongue. It was doomed I tell you.

[stokemaveric]

i had a penfriend in massachusetts in the u.s.a her name was karen kulis i often wonder what happened to her...if she would have played her cards right she could have been the 1st mrs maveric lol....

[ttfn]

Don't worry stoke - she emailed me last week to say she regretted the biggest mistake of her life - she is keeping well though (:-))

[DSJ]

Hi, stokemaveric, I've just spotted Karen Kulis on Facebook. I wonder if she's the same one?

[stokemaveric]

lol ttfn.....really dsj ill have a look lol....

[boxtops]

We were matched when we were twelve with children from a school near Bordeaux. I was given a girl of same age as me. We've never met, and the correspondence tailed off a bit as we got older and families and jobs intervened - but we still send Christmas and birthday cards. She writes in French, I write in English.
I also started writing as an adult to a lady in Tasmania but that fizzled out after a couple of years.
I had a penfriend for several years in the former Yugoslavia - from when I was about 16 I think. She was lovely, and she travelled across to England on her own on the train to stay with my family for three weeks. I never went to them in Belgrade, although her family were dismayed that they couldn't return the compliment, but I wasn't a confident teenager and wouldn't countenance it. We kept in touch regularly, she became an air hostess and flew all over the whole and we met sometimes when she came into Glasgow where I then lived - but sadly she died of leukaemia in 1970.

[ttfn]

Flamin Nora boxy - are you really older than 161 now then?