Penfriends-any GNetters have one still/had one?

I used to have a French pen-friend at secondary school. We were all set up with one as a school link. Mine was called Adele, but cannot remember for the life of me where she came from. We did send each other a book one year, but never got to visit. She used to write in blue tinted squared paper which I thought was very odd and slightly exotic, but since visiting France in latter years, I see that it is widely available in stationers there!

And yes, I was about 12 too. Well do0ne for keeping in touch with yours Newquay.

I had a penfriend who lived on Long Island, New York. We were teenagers, it was the late 60s and early 70s. I wrote absolute drivel about fashion and pop music when I think of all the interesting things we could have discussed, unfortunately that was the state of my brain at the time I blame the hormones

I now exchange emails with a French cousin fairly frequently and one in Canada occasionally, sort of pen pals. I'm pleased to say I have now moved on from the fatuous nonsense of my teen years.

I had one in California. We were both 12 and our birthdays were only a day or two apart. We wrote to each other for about 7 or 8 years until we both got seriously involved with boyfriends!
In the early letters, the subject matter was mainly about fashion and pop music but it changed as we grew older. Boyfriends, sex, the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war dominated our correspondence. Her best friend wrote to my best friend so some interesting exchanges went on!
Sadly, her friend, who married at 17 was widowed some months later when her husband was killed in Vietnam.
I kept the letters for a long time but eventually got round to throwing them away. I wish I'd kept them now.

Yes, my 'correspondante' and I raised a glass last year to 50 years of friendship. Our children visited each other's families; our grandchildren are a bit too young yet.
As I knew her great-grandmother (we watched the moon landing all together) I have now known 6 generations of her family.
I count her friendship as a person, and the insights she has given me as one of the blessings of my life.

I still correspond once or twice a year with 2 American penfriend that I got through a magazine in 1976

No I lost touch with mine, a German girl called Kirsten and a French girl Marianne there was a pen friend system operating back then and it was easy to get one. We corresponded for several years and I wish we'd continued.

I had a Belgian penfriend when in secondary school - I can't remember her name now.
OTOH my younger sister has a German penfriend who she still sees from time to time. My sister has stayed with her in Germany, and the German girl has been here. Even the parents visited eachother when they were alive (my Dad under protest - he didn't want to go back to Germany after his wartime experiences.)

I have a couple in Australia and one in New Zealand. We don't write as regularly as we used to as postage is so expensive and do on occasion resort to email.

I used to write to a prisoner in Arizona for a good few years.
We seem to have lost touch, which must have been my fault, I'm thinking, since he certainly wasn't going anywhere!

I've had a French pen pal since I was 9 and we still keep in touch with emails and photos but sadly we've never met....

I have had a South African penpal since 1960 but no longer write the letters but resort to email and the occasional telephone call. We were introduced by my sister's best friend who was writing to her sister. That friendship fizzled out but ours has continued. She has been here twice and I have been to SA once. I hope to visit again perhaps next year.

My pen friend was from Toulouse in France and called Genevieve which I thought very exotic,she was 12 the same age as me and I wrote to her for a long time before we just caught up with life and children etc,when we where travelling back from Spain one year we travelled via Toulouse and took time to find her address but her family had moved from there,I do wish we had kept intouch.

I think it was quite the thing to do back then wasn't it? I recall having two Russian pen friends, Ludmila Shahova-what happened to you then?-and a Japanese one for a while. I recall getting books out of our local library to try to teach myself Russian and Japanese too. Didn't get very far I'm afraid.
I do now also correspond with a young woman in Ukraine-our DD1 went on an exchange and they visited each other. She's a lovely young woman-they're having such a hard time over there.

I have a 'pen friend' , we have never met. He was a client of a company I worked for in the early 90's and when I moved to a new role , I sent him my new email address to keep in touch and we have ever since.

Our correspondence is slightly more sporadic now I am retired. He has never married and travels extensively to far flung corners of the world and always sends me a small gift on his return, always something unusual. He sends me Belgian chocolates every year at Easter and on my birthday without fail.

I don't think we will ever meet but our mails are lively and fun and I cherish his friendship.

That sounds wonderful! A little bit of mystery too. Have you seen a picture of him, N & G?

I too had a pen friend that our school arranged. My pension friend was a girl called Stella and she lived in a village in Limbang Sarawak, Malaysia. We exchanged air mail letters for quite a few years and I remember the excitement of getting home from school to find a letter waiting for me. She asked me if I could send her an Enid Blyton book that she wanted to read but couldn’t get hold of in Sarawak. In exchange, she sent me a beautiful beaded bracelet and necklace that had been made in her village. The bracelet has long gone but I still have the necklace 50 years later. I often wonder what happened to Stella and wished that we'd continued to correspond.

I had 2 penfriends whilst at grammar school, Odile Esperet who lived in Paris, and Jane Camilleri, who lived in Valletta, Malta. I do wish I hadn`t let them lapse after leaving school.

I have two friends - one an Australian I have been writing to for 70 years since we were both at Infants school - she has visited me twice and I have been there once. We now keep in touch by email - at least once every month and we have cut the Christmas presents down so that we just send to each other.! I keep in touch with her daughters in Facebook too.
My other one is French and we met when we were 16 and she came to stay with a neighbour to improve her English. She and I went out together - great fun going to London for the day. We continued to write at least every Christmas and if she was in UK for her work - she had a translator type job - would add on a couple of days to come and stay with me and my family. Then 20 years ago we began to see each other regularly - we often stay for a couple of days with her on our way to the Calais ferry and she has stayed with me here in the depths of the country - so we have been friends for more than 60 years. After 50 she said she thought we should use the 'tu' form of address rather than ' Vous' but I just cannot get into that frame of mind! Most of our conversations are in English anyway as her English is better than my French.

I wish I wasn't such a lazy sod when it comes to keeping up with people.
These stories of years of friendship are wonderful!

Yes MissAdventure about 10 years ago. Just an ordinary chap, he is some sort of tech geek, and to be fair looks a bit like it lol

But he's dryly funny , and I am intrigued by his travels that he does with groups of like minded single people . He goes way off the beaten track and always sends me wonderful pictures .

what a lovely friendship, N & G. Thanks for answering: I was intrigued!

I'm blessed with a faithful penfriend of 9 years but a bit different from the usual penfriendship. He's a prisoner on Death Row in USA. The organisation Human Writes will give details if you consider writing to a penfriend on DR, they act as go-between when required. Not always an easy penfriendship but a very valuable one for us both.