Recently I chatted to 3AW’s Tom Elliot about ‘pen pals.’
Tom had a call on his show from a listener who started writing to a ‘pen pal’ when she was 11 years old.
She is now 77 and has just (finally!) met that ‘pen pal’ face-to-face for the first time.
Tom also told me about a primary school in Melbourne where the kids were being encouraged to write to a pen pal in a remote village in Rwanda.
My response was that both of these stories demonstrated that being a pen pal is (on the whole) a good thing.
The expression ‘pen pal’ in American and was coined in 1925.
The British equivalent is ‘penfriend’ and this seems to go back further—to around 1908.
Both those dates suggest that this whole phenomenon got going not long after reliable, regular postal services were established in most of the developed world.
So, is it a good thing?
Yes, or course it is.
For the kids Tom told me about this is a great experience of making contact with someone in a totally different culture.
But it can be good for anyone of any age.
In fact, there is research suggesting that it is especially good for older people—even those older people who have not had pen pals earlier in life.
Perhaps during childhood and adolescence they missed out on the whole pen pal thing.
Then came a busy working life and family demands.
And it is only now, in retirement, they have the time and the spare energy to make a penfriend or pen pal.
To make those connections there are, these days, a number of websites that offer to set you up with someone in another country to exchange letters (or, let’s be honest, emails) with from time to time.
For all of us what this sort of writing does is force us to make those mental connections that make our thoughts clear and well expressed.
This cognitive activity can be so strong as to hold off the possible onset of dementia (not a bad thing!)
It also forges a connection with the wider world, and there’s nothing wrong with that either!
So, it seems to me that ‘pen pals’ (or ‘penfriends’) can be a good thing.
For Perth readers – today I will join 6PR host Tod Johnston on ‘The Long Lunch’ to talk words and language, at about 12:20pm Perth time.
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