Air Mail Friends Old and New
The emails I have received from blog readers over the weekend has been like having penfriends all over again. It has been very nice and reminded me of schooldays when one would have penfriends all over the world. I had a penfriend in Uppsala, Sweden, a girl in Brussels, Belgium, a boy in Kuala Lumpur and a girl in Wangaratta in Victoria and I remember learning from her that you can go ski-ing in Australia. It was fun and watching out for the aerogramme in the post, that lightweight single sheet of blue paper that could be folded into a self-contained letter and envelope and you had to fit all your news into that folded format and then fold it and lick all round the edge to stick it down. And they were bought at the post office and the price included the airmail fee so no stamp was required.
And then there were airmail writing paper pads and envelopes and airmail stickers. I remember when one of my early relationships ended sometime in the 1970s and the guy moved to Papua New Guinea and we corresponded by airmail for years as we remained friends. He then moved to Trinidad and Tobago and then Australia. He eventually settled in Hamilton, New Zealand. He was more in love with me than I was with him and not marrying him was probably one of the biggest mistakes of my life. He remained single and lives with two dogs somewhere up there, or down there, in Hamilton. We don't correspond anymore. His dad worked for ICI on Teeside, ICI, Imperial Chemical Industries, the barometer of the British economy for many decades.
PS The blog will remain public at least for the time being.
I remember pen pals and those aerograms. It was exciting getting letters from all over the world. But none of mine seemed to last very long.
ReplyDeleteI was born in Hamilton. A city with a lovely lake, a river running almost through the centre, green parks and beautiful walks.
Mine didn't last long either. I can't remember what happened to the girl in Wangaratta, I think she was too sporty for me and we just stopped corresponding.
DeleteI didn't know you were born in Hamilton. My long lost boyfriend eventually settled there and was until quite recently a librarian at Hamilton University. He used to write to me about the amazing walks where he lives.
I loved having penpals! At school there was an organisation we could use to exchange addresses with kids our age from all over the world. We had to state our age and country, languages we could read and write, and whether we wanted a boy or girl for a penpal or it didn‘t matter.
ReplyDeleteMy pals were Helen from Scotland and a boy from Bombay (as it was called then). I also had penpals in Australia, but they were the children of my parents‘ friends who had come to Europe for their honeymoon and stopped in Germany for about two years. In 1971, when I was three, they lived in the downstairs flat while we had the attic. They were still newlyweds without children then and loved playing with the two little girls from upstairs, and they taught me my first words in English.
It was exciting receiving the letters. We also had a school organisation for penpals. I remember being scared that my parents wouldn't allow me to have penpals but they were all for it. The writing lasted until I left school but when I moved on in my life, which I suppose they did too, we stopped writing.
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