Pen Pals

[Dusak]

When I was at school around the age of nine, our English teacher passed round a list of contacts from America. As it was then an all boys school, all contact were boys. We were told that these boys wanted Pen Pals in England, so we would choose one each to start contact. I remember my chosen PP was a boy named Ben, but that is all I can remember of him now. We wrote to each other for about six months or so, but I stopped as he was always taking the **** about my spelling due to my then undiscovered problem of dyslexia.

About four years ago I decided to broaden my horizons by joining an internet PP site, mixed genders, but eventually ended up with just females and one male as the other males came on far to heavy, and I began to suspect their true motives in writing to me. Of course there were a couple of iffy female ones as well, so ditched those. Now I have three in India, one in the Philippians and the only male I kept in touch with, George from the Gambia. We all keep in contact, at least once a month over the last four years. Since writing about my visa exploits to them, all have given me free invites to go and stay with them anytime I please, which is kind of them but doubtful that I would take any of the offers up as I hate flying that long.

So I was wondering, have any of you still got PP's from long ago that you still keep in contact with? Or are they now just to to old fashioned.

[carrie]

That's nice Dusak having friends like that.

[Horus]

I have no pens pals as such, although over on the Gold side we do have a small group of us that ‘chat’ together and often share what we are doing on a daily basis or on small outings we may have had with family or friends. It is called “What are you doing today” It tends to ramble along and will involve all and everything and goes off in tangents and is very much like several friends all writing to each other. I started the latest one off in January 2016 and to date it has had 1062 replies and over 65,000 views so it must have a few readers out there.

[MARIO]

I am still in touch with two who I have known for 52 years.One of them Dana is in London next week with her husband Over the years only met 3 times.

[Horus]

I am still in touch with two who I have known for 52 years.One of them Dana is in London next week with her husband Over the years only met 3 times.

Wow that is some pen pal friendship, will you be meeting up with them again? hopefully you will

[MARIO]

Yes I will. They only here for 3 days though. Dinner in Soho

[newcastle]

I imagine the internet and emails did for pen pals.

And, being based in Egypt doesn't help. You'd be lucky if your pal received 50% of your output whilst his/hers , even if they reached the border, are unlikely to be delivered unless you have a P.O. Box.

[John Landon]

My Wife has had a pen pal from New Zealand she has kept in touch with since she was about 12 years old.
they came to stay with us a few years ago, and we took them around the sites in North Wales, and we all got on very well.
They stay in touch on Facebook now, but we still exchange presents and cards at Xmas.

[HEPZIBAH]

My junior school introduced us all to pen pals at a school in York. I wrote to my pen pal a number of times but rarely got a reply so I gave up in the end. I did become quite a prolific letter writer in my teens however, as many of my friends were older than me and moved away to college.

I've often thought of many of my contacts through the internet as being pen pals. Some live in the UK, but many are from other countries, and there are some that we only have a smattering of each other's language but somehow get by. We have clicked online and become good friends over the years. Some I have met, but others not. Curiously, I have probably met more of my international contacts that I met online, than I have my UK ones!

There is still something special about receiving a hand written letter in the post, but alas my handwriting has always been appalling and has certainly not improved since I do so much typing these days. I do still try to send friends cards though from time to time, when practical, even if I've included a typed letter, as I still appreciate the personal touch.

[Dusak]

There seems to be quite a big ongoing push to reinstate letter writing, now called snail mail. Good actual time terminology for the Egyptian postal service.