Call me AL

When i was a kid i had an Italian penpal called Anna Valentino. She was from Florence and she meant everything to me for at least 7 months in 1979.After six letters i knew everything about her.Her favourite food was spaghetti bolognese and her favourite group were the Bee Gees.

As with all relationships with 11 year old Italian girls this one fizzled out and i was alone once more. I sent my 7th letter to Anna and waited and waited and waited but she never sent one back.

Some say she simply got sick of writing letters to a faceless young Irish lad, some say she didn't take kindly to me telling her that The Bee Gees were shite but i have always liked to think that Anna and her whole family were killed in a horrific knife attack whilst they slept in the dead of night.

Anyway whats the story with kids these days? With the advent of all things Internet i'm guessing the kids aren't writing to each other using pen and paper these days but do they have internet penpals? Or has Bebo, Facebook etc destroyed this noble tradition.

moneypenny20

No it's that parents have woken up to the fact that encouraging their little darlings to write to a complete stranger who happens to enclose a picture of a young child is possibly not the best idea in the world

I had a German penpal. Her name was Birgitte - my darling father used to refer to her as that German Gitte - oh how we laughed

Kooky.

Now they talk online to people in chatrooms who can be anything they want to be.

I had a Swedish penpal called Sara. When I was 14 she came over to stay with us - she more or less insisted - and spent the whole 2 weeks saying snotty things about the fact that we lived in a semi. She also snogged my boyfriend but TBH I wasn't that fussed about him. My family took us all over the place, tried to entertain her the whole time.

I went back on the ferry with her for a couple of weeks, found out her house was an enormous detached place, with a swimming pool, overlooking the most beautiful lake. Maybe that's why she was so disgusted with our place but manners cost nothing.

Her family obviously couldn't be bothered with us, sent us off to a kids' camp for a few days, I saw my first naked adult male their (man, those Swedes get their kit off at the slightest excuse with hindsight, he was one of the counsellors so maybe it was a bit of a dodgy camp...hmmm...), took us out once IIRC, hardly ever fed us, and basically I felt like a spare part the whole time.

Strangely, we didn't keep in touch much after that.

HOWEVER all is not lost - I had to come home on the ferry myself (would we do that these days? I think not), 19 hours on a boat with a very nice 17 year-old boy I met and lots of Bacardi to entertain me.

JenniGee

Crikey, that's a bit cynical

I had several pen friends when I was growing up: in Japan, Turkey, what was then Yugoslavia & the US. I even used to write reams to my school friends in the holidays - before the days of mobile phones & parents who would drive everywhere for their kids.

I'e still got a box full of those letters now...maybe I'm just nostalgic for the days before this instant, disposable msn communication that kids favour now...says something about our society, I think.

Now I've gone all introspective

Lol!

Dorothy

My kids still write letters to my parents. They can phone or email any time, but my mother loves to get a nice hand written letter in the mail, so the kids do it to make her happy. Does that count?

Nickie

My kids write to the children,same ages, of the families that i have met on here.

Nickie

asher

my eldest was always a geek talked via the internet to fellow geeks in hawaii tokyo and america, no worries about perverts as he had been educated about them and was also autistic so didnt want to actually meet people anyway

moneypenny20

The was there for a reason

Glasgowlass

I had a penfriend who lived on a farm in Iowa and who went on about weiners a lot.

Xavier_slowhand

well im 19 but i can say its now myspace and msn messenger hahahaha, but yes some kids do write, my best mate's lil bro has a penpal in asia

Glasgowlass

What is it with writing in first letters only these days? Ma 35 year old pal has just started doing it and I've got no idea what she's bloomin sayin! Or is that the point? I'm starting to feel old.

moneypenny20

You've edited this because it sounded daft It still makes no sense to me.

Call me AL

Yeah but you need internet to be part of the great Social Networking revolution. Does this mean that Penpalling is still alive and well in impoverished backward places like Mozambique, Mali and Melbourne?

Call me AL

I have just written to a pretty Native Indian called Diamond Yellowrobe in the hope of reigniting the wonderful world of Penpalling.

http://www.cellpals.com/yellowrobediamond1206.htm

Some may say i only chose Diamond because she's easy on the eye but to be honest it was this sentence that made me realise we were meant for each other.
"I am looking for a gentleman who is attentive, honest, reliable, sweet and very generous with his love and money"

Nu-Shooz

I had afew penpals when i was a kid.

Not heard of anyone having a penpal for years.