Pen Pals?
 

Do people still actually write letters to anyone anymore? When I was in my 20's I used to write to many of my friends when I moved from Blackburn to Plymoiuth (at the time I didn't have a landline).


Fast forward to the future would you want your children/grand kids to keep and letters that you received?

Re: Pen Pals?
 

When I was in the forces I had a couple of pen pals who wrote regularly. That was up to the early 60's. Now I have a friend who I worked with in the 60's and 70's and he writes a few times a year. I reply by letter because he doesn't have a PC or fancy iPad or iPhone. Any photos of our times together driving the coaches on tour he photo copies on plain paper and includes them in the letter.

Re: Pen Pals?
 

would not want em to read them never mind keep them until i died. would hate to have to educate grandchildren on the use of a fountain pen and the reason i never sent or received a text. on top of letters do people still send christmas cards anymore. we send less and receive less every year now and its not because they have died.

Re: Pen Pals?
 

Letters not so much, cards at christmas have become fewer. Like Gremlin mentioned, while serving around the 80's-90's the forces had their own local papers in BAOR "Forces weekly echo" & "Sixth sense" could be found scattered around the NAAFI, TocH, YM or Barracks & rest rooms of Germany, within these pages along with, buy & sell, small adds & various other minutae of military existence could be found the "Forces pen pals" section.


These tended to be mainly, but not exquisitly full of young & not so young ladies, but also a few chaps who wanted to correspond with one of her Majes finest soldierly types. Many a young chap took up this marvellous opportunity to ensure an eventful home leave, in various towns & cities throughout the UK & not just with one writer in some cases, in fact one such young chap had a folder full of his varying amorous acquaintances (not me I hasten to add). :D



Indubitably the accompanying photos of these prospective "Juliets" or the odd "Romeos" in search of Mr/Mrs Right Now usually ended up pinned upon the blocks notice board alongside block rules, fire notices, stag lists, part 1's & 2's, all within their own section fondly referred to as the "wall of shame/fame". ;)

Re: Pen Pals?
 

When I was about 13, a girl in our street told me that she had a French pen-pal. I was good at French, so asked if she could find me one. We corresponded for some years and it faded out. I could remember his name and address until not long ago. I think that I benefitted from the experience of those letters.

Re: Pen Pals?
 

I have always enjoyed writing letters and when I was a young thing (just after pens replaced quills) I had six or seven pen-pals (male and female) in various parts of the world. Yes, Dave, a couple of them were soldiers stationed away from home, doing their National Service. One did visit my family and me, came for the weekend. Nice young man but no romantic interest. I got a lot of enjoyment reading first-hand about other people's lives and I hope my letters to them were of a similar enjoyment.

Have to confess I also composed letters for a couple of my friends to send to their boyfriends who were in the forces as they never knew what to write. Talk about Barbara Cartland, I really did the romance bit. Must have worked as the romances continued....

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One of the girls I wrote letters for had only been writing very bland ones (that's how she described them) hence her asking me for help. I remember that after he had received a couple that I wrote, her boyfriend told her how much he was enjoying the lovely romantic letters she had started to write - I think he used the expression 'spiced-up', and that it was like they were from a different person - little did he know...ha ha ha ha.

Re: Pen Pals?
 

From now on, Dotti, I shall not believe anything you write. PS I love you.

Re: Pen Pals?
 

...and PS I loves you, too, Bob. xxxx

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At least I brought a bit of happiness to those (lonely) lads - and believe you me, they couldn't wait to get home to their girlfriends......enough said!

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One of my penfriends was a young man from Jordan. Can’t recall how we were initially put in touch with each other but we corresponded for quite a while. He wrote really interesting letters. However, one day he asked me how many sheeps (sic) and cows my parents had and when I replied ‘none’ the correspondence sort of fizzled out. My mother said I should ask him how many I needed for a dowry – but I think she was kidding. Well I hope she was….

...anyway he said he was going to America to stay with an uncle and study to be a doctor, mentioned calling to see me on our family estate one day. As the only estate with regard to my family was the Council estate I lived on, it was probably just as well our ‘connection’ ceased.

Re: Pen Pals?
 

there is a possibility that those letters may have been the best part of the relationship. my daughter had a danish one for a few years in her early teens. this girl spoke very good engligh and visited us when i lived in rugby. picked her up at heathrow airport and they had run out of conversation by the time i got home. was a long 5 days before she went back home trying to find things to do to keep her happy. the only thing she was interested in was my 1947 humber super snipe and going out in it. they never wrote to each other again after those few days.

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Gave up with my penpal when she decided to criticise my grammar and punctuation in her last letter, ye Gods I thought(comma) I may as well go back to posting on AccyWeb!:mad:

Re: Pen Pals?
 

Love it, Less. 10 out of 10 for your perfect English, go to the top of the class. Though to be absolutely correct you should really have left a space between 'thought' and '(comma)'.....

Re: Pen Pals?
 

Nope, a comma ALWAYS comes with no space as does a full stop etc.

(see me after class).

Re: Pen Pals?
 

..but only if you use an actual comma and not in the way you had written it, as well you know, and yes - I'm quite aware you wrote this on purpose to get me to 'bite', and I have. I bet you reply to get the last word - and you can have it (maybe).

Re: Pen Pals?
 

gone quite pail now and in a cold sweat. reminds me of english lessons at school where i just never got punctuation, spelling, what the subject of a sentence actually was or the rest of it. how i ever passed GCE english language was beyond anyone at school including me.

Re: Pen Pals?
 

To be honest, which doesn't happen very often, I hadn't put it like that as a trap, it was because when proof reading before posting, (because there are many pedants out there), I noticed I'd missed the comma so was just emphasising how easy it is to make a mistake solely for my own benefit.

Re: Pen Pals?
 

Well there you are, Less, you've explained it really well. You've also managed to have the last word as I thought you would...oops! sorry, no you haven't....

Re: Pen Pals?
 

Re: Pen Pals?
 

Surely you didn't think a pale response would put me off - when highlighted it reads well. But a good try....

Re: Pen Pals?
 

No worries MH, you've got a valid excuse being as how you come from 'Artlepool, English was never your first language! :D:D:D


Yeah, I know, bit rich coming from a Scouser ...... ;)

Re: Pen Pals?
 

on a serious note. when i was born in 1946 there was a greater chance of both of us having foreign blood in our veins than most parts of the country. must be why i have always been on the side of the vikings and hated those bloody normans.

Re: Pen Pals?
 

Hi mate, do you remember the "Dear Johns" or "Blueys" we used to get from our girls friends back home when they decided they were madly in love with somebody else. Some squaddies would have a weep, some wouldn't give a toss but somehow those letters always seemed to finish up pinned on the barrack room wall.

Re: Pen Pals?
 

Most certainly do Gremlin, the "wall of shame" usually had one or two hung up on there usually with an accompanying & incriminating photo. :D


Course, it never happened to my good self. :rolleyes: