After writing her first pen pal letter as a teen, Marjorie got the bug…
My dad ruffled my hair and handed me a stamp.
‘One for your collection,’ he said.
‘Wow!’ I replied. ‘It’s all the way from Australia!’
Dad worked at a university, and he often handled mail from overseas.
I adored the tiny illustrations of scenes from all over the world.
One afternoon, Dad asked if he could have one of my old schoolbooks.
‘My colleague wanted a copy to send to his teacher friend in Denmark,’ he explained.
That’s how I first got in touch with Nina.
She was a Danish girl aged
10, the same age as me, and
I was fascinated by her descriptions of home.
She told me about her family holidays in their summerhouse on an island off the coast.
I was totally spellbound!
We lost touch when she moved overseas to work as an au pair, but by then, I was mad about letter writing.
My secondary school set up
a pen pal scheme with some French students.
We were only meant to have one each, but somehow, I
ended up with two!
After that, I joined a pen pal club in Burnley.
All my money went on stationary, stamps and postage and soon I was writing five or six letters a week.
Our postman got to know me very well.
As a teenager, there was another advantage to my correspondence obsession – boys!
There was Mirek in Czechoslovakia, who only ever wrote about his technical studies.
Then there was Reza from Iran, who sent me jewellery!
I was smitten with tall, dark and handsome Andy in Malta.
And Samuel from Ghana swore his undying love to me!
Then there was Colin from South London who wanted to take me to Battersea funfair.
I’m thinking of going on a world tour, I wrote to my pen pal Tanja from Yugoslavia. Would you like to come?
So when I was 18, we arranged to meet one summer’s day
at the base of the
Eiffel Tower.
But when I informed my parents, they had other ideas.
‘Mum, I’m off to see the world!’ I announced.
‘What? Over my dead body!’ she replied.
After arguments and tears,
it was agreed Tanja could come and stay with us for six weeks instead.
Aged 21, I had my daughter.
As a young mum, I didn’t have as much time to write and the letters with some
of my old pen pals dried up.
Then, on holiday in France one year,
I had an idea.
I could advertise in a French magazine to find some French penfriends.
The replies came in thick and fast – many more than I could handle so I began pairing them up with young English mums.
It worked well, so I started a Penfriend Club called ‘Over the Rainbow’.
Within a week, 95 people had subscribed. The club continued to grow and not much later, I was invited to the first ever pen pal convention, held in Illinois, USA.
Two years later, I organised a second pen pal convention – a British one in Swindon.
And next up was the Australian pen pal jamboree!
I was seeing the world, just as I’d dreamt of as a little girl.
With the internet age we pivoted on to Facebook, and our numbers only grew.
After a boom during the pandemic, we had 500 active members at any one time and 1000 followers on Facebook.
We had letters pouring in from everywhere, from Iceland to Timbuktu.
Although we’d fallen out of touch, I kept thinking of Nina – the pen pal who’d started it all!
So, on the off chance, I sent a letter to her childhood address.
To my delight, I received a reply just a couple of weeks later.
It was such a lovely surprise to hear from you! she wrote. My parents still live at this address and asked me to translate your letter. I would love to resume writing again!
The two of us wrote back and forth, catching up on our life stories.
I’ve been writing letters for six decades now.
I hope one day I’ll meet Nina face to face.
The sooner the letter!
Marjorie Edwards, 75, Ilminster, Somerset