Some French Pupils Are Sharing a Penfriend. I Know Why.

Somewhere in France, two children are taking turns with one English twelve-year-old, like a class hamster at half-term.

The British used to be better at this, or at least Angela Reed was. In 2017 the calligrapher went up into her loft for a shoebox of letters from the Royal Mail’s Hola! penpal club, which a friend had told her about on the bus to school. Australia, from August 1995 to May 1997. Two French girls from 1996, written to in actual French, to test her GCSE. Germany from 1997 to 2000, ending on a letter that asked whether she had a mobile phone. An American fourteen-year-old whose opening question was: “Have you ever met Queen Elizabeth’s grandson?” And Austria, still going: a shared love of the Backstreet Boys, then email, then Facebook.

I joined a penfriend scheme in 1993 and was given a girl in Lyon. Her first letter ran to four pages, with a photograph of her pony and a sticker of a dolphin. Mine ran to half a side and ended by promising a proper letter next week. Angela’s correspondence is dated to the month. Mine is dated to the week: the next one.

So I know what Braunton is short of. Not French children, not paper, not Room 43. It is short of the English half of the arrangement, and in 1993 the English half of the arrangement was me. Under Angela’s post, one commenter remembers writing to people in Australia “but no one ever replied to me”. I may owe Australia an apology as well.

This term our daughter, Harriet, got a French penfriend through her own school. The first letter came in a blue envelope: careful handwriting, a drawing of a cat, three questions about football. It has been on her desk for nineteen days. I asked when she was planning to reply.

“Next week,” she said.

Last night I wrote to Lyon.