Pen Pals

[rabet]

It has only just occurred to me how much CB resembles the long-established, but perhaps now defunct, tradition of exchanging handwritten letters and photographs with people in distant places. Did any of you do this, and did it lead to meetings or lasting friendships? In my grammar school (in the Middle Ages!) we boys were encouraged to do this in Latin via a magazine called Acta Diurna (Daily Doings). Yes, unbelievable today!

[gness]

Hi, Rabet....I had two in my teens....one was Swedish and bonkers and the other lived in Great Yarmouth....

We had been letter writing for a few weeks when some friends and I decided to take a trip to Yarmouth for the evening...as you did.

No mobiles in those days and I couldn't recall her address but as we were walking along the front I asked a group of youths if anyone knew L...K..... by any chance...

That's her over there, replied one.....amazing co-incidence....but I think she thought she'd found a stalker not a pen-pal....☺

[BlackadderV]

I can remember Acta Diurna, especially the cartoon on the front page. Quite funny, but now totally non-PC.

[Bbbananas]

I wrote to a girl called Heather who lived in Ballymena, Ireland in the early 70's. I often wonder what happened to her.
I had no idea of the politics of that time, neither did she mention it. We were 11.

[roopower]

I wrote to two, a French girl and an Italian boy, I wrote to him for several years. My daughter put an ad in a magazine, run by the royal mail, I think, when she was a young teenager,she had dozens of replies and wrote to about 20 youngsters around the world. She's still in touch with two of them about 15 years later though they don't write letters any more, it's e-mail and Facebook now.

[BlackadderV]

The one I particularly remember is that of two lions standing in the Colosseum, looking at a black man, and one lion says to the other, "Eheu, cibum iterum incenderunt". Try getting away with that nowadays.

[rabet]

Hi Blackadder; yes, the PC brigade would be outraged at that! And in this age of non-education, there's nothing like a bit of Latin for closing down a thread. O tempora! O mores!