Paper mates for 68yrs
Ink-credible friendship sparked by ad in Mirror
Shirley Bloomfield tore open the envelope excitedly; the nineyear-old had been waiting over a month for this letter. She didn’t have many people her own age to talk to and, as an only child, was a bit of a loner, so she always looked forward to getting her correspondence.
Every six weeks, the pages arrived with postmarks proving they’d travelled all the way across the Atlantic from New York State to a North London suburb.
Shirley and pen pal John Wallach, also nine, would fill each other in on what they’d been up to, writing about their families, schools and what comics they liked as they started swapping letters in 1954.
Although their idle childhood chit-chat may have been unremarkable, what is impressive is that 68 years later, the two friends are still at it – and it’s all thanks to the Daily Mirror.
Shirley began writing to
John after her mum saw an advert for a pen pal scheme in this paper in 1954. “I’ve got no brothers and sisters, but there was this boy I could write to across the world,” Shirley, now 77, explains.
John, who now lives in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, had three brothers growing up and recalls being delighted about writing to a girl. “My teacher came in with all these postcards from kids in England, and there were only four boys.
So a lot of us boys got girls. I got Shirley and was really excited,” he explains.
“The postcards from her early on just covered the basics. You know, what my name is, where I live, I’m nine years old, and what my hobbies are. And so I basically wrote back something similar.”
John would ask Shirley about life in Britain while she would ask him about life in the States. “I think at one point I asked him what dollars are. I had no idea what dollars looked like, it was all new,” says Shirley, who is based in Buckingham.
As the years went on, they continued writing to each other, the letters getting longer and their relationship stronger.
Reading the reams of handwriting was like checking in with an old friend and it became important to them both. When John joined the Peace Corps in
1968 he wrote to Shirley from Uganda. “I’ve got a photo that he sent me with two pygmies,” she laughs. “On the back, it just said these are fully grown pygmies. I’ve never felt so tall.”
In 1969 they met for the first time and hugged. John came to her house and got to know her husband Fred and their children, and they got on just as well in person. “I didn’t know what to expect,” says John. “But when I first saw her it
was just like meeting an old friend. It was strange but it seemed comfortable because we had known each other for so long at that point.”
In 1982, he visited again with his then-wife. Shirley and John often wrote about their families. He told her about his niece and nephews, and Shirley kept him informed about her husband and kids. So much so that in 1996, when she turned 50, her children – she has two sons and three daughters, plus 10 grandkids and four great-grandkids – planned a surprise party and invited John.
“I didn’t want to go to the party at first,” says Shirley. “I walked to go to the bathroom and my daughter turned me around and there was John. I was so shocked. I have no idea how they managed to get in touch. But they picked him up at the airport. He stayed with one of them. The only clue was my son had tidied his bedroom!”
In the years since, Shirley and her family have visited John several times. They’ve been up the Empire State Building together, seen shows on Broadway and gone to his annual family reunion in South Carolina.
And on one of his trips to Britain, John and Shirley both visited Stonehenge for the first time together. John was also here in September and they planned to go to Windsor Castle – but ended up watching TV coverage of the Queen’s funeral instead. John also introduced Shirley to his partner, Gwenn. “They got to know each other and I think they really like each other,” he says.
The group went out to dinner in a local restaurant and Shirley arranged a surprise. “I managed to order a balloon that said ‘Welcome to the gang’. We stuck it on the table for her when she came in,” she reveals.
And still, the pair write. They typically send eight to 10 pages each at a time. John says, “We write about what’s going on with each other’s families, politics, travel and, of course, any health concerns at this point.”
People are stunned at how long they have corresponded. “I think friends and family are always amazed,” says John. “So is everybody else who knows that we’ve been writing for so long.”
Over the years, the pals have even begun to think of themselves as siblings. “She is one of my dearest friends and oldest friends. I feel like she is a family member,” says John.
“He’s only got brothers,” Shirley adds, “so I’m like his sister, I suppose. And he’s got no children, just nieces and nephews. So I tell him what my grandchildren do and so on. And he’s always interested in how they are. They’ve all got to know him.
“The pen-friend title is there but really he is just part of the family.”