Hello from the other side: Saint John and Australian pen pals meet after 57 years & More News Here

Back in the mid-Nineteen Sixties, two 10-year-old women dwelling a world aside put pen to paper, forging a lifetime of letters and long-distance friendship.

On Thursday, 57 years since they grew to become pen pals, Wendy Simon of Saint John and Wendy McIlwraith of Australia met for the first time. 

Their assembly at the Saint John Airport was full of smiles and hugs born of the many letters exchanged over the years.

“Neither of us are getting any younger … there’s little health issues it’ll start to crop up.” stated McIlwraith, who was visiting mates in Toronto.

“So it was kind of like, if I don’t do it now, it ain’t going to happen.”

Kangaroos and koala bears

Sitting in her Saint John classroom enthusiastic about Australia, Wendy Simon’s creativeness conjured up photos of kangaroos and koala bears. These had been, after all, pre-internet occasions. She could not uncover photos of that faraway land with a easy keystroke.

One day her class was requested if the college students needed to correspond with a pen pal in a special nation. 

“They matched us up and the rest is history,” stated Simon.

WATCH: Wendy Simon and Wendy McIlwraith meet face-to-face at the Saint John Airport

 And what was in that first letter despatched all the technique to the other aspect of the world?

“I asked her if she had kangaroos running around in her backyard,” Simon stated.

McIlwraith, who lived in the metropolis of Toowoomba three hours west of Brisbane, stated she did in actual fact have kangaroos in her yard. 

“I live on a property in the bush with kangaroos in the backyard. No koalas though. I’m sorry. Never seen a koala.”

While the prospect of getting a pen pal has pale in the age of social media, it nonetheless holds a nostalgic energy over those that had one. 

“It was the novelty of writing somebody on the other side of the world,” Simon stated.

McIlwraith added, “Back in those days … we didn’t even have TV when we started corresponding. My family didn’t have a car, we didn’t have a telephone.”

“I suppose it was a little bit of dedication as well, you know. It wasn’t an easy thing to do … you had to really sit down and think about and put the effort into it, so it was a different level of consciousness.”

LISTEN: A story of two Wendys: The CBC’s Megan MacAlpine speaks to each ladies about what the assembly means for them

When Simon was in highschool she remembers travelling to California together with her mother and father.

“I got back, I wrote her 17 pages, both sides of looseleaf, with every detail from the minute I left to the minute I landed back home again.” 

Simon even managed to introduce a few of her classmates to McIlwraith by passing notes behind the trainer’s again.

“I never got caught, and I would get my classmates just to write, ‘Hi, Wendy. How you doing? My name is John Doe.’ I would always do that just for a kick.”

The story of the two Wendys can also be the story of how a friendship grows and blossoms.

“There’s a foundation to that,” stated Simon.

“And even if you are on the other side of the world, that foundation is established. So, you know, like with any good friend that might live next door, live down the road, live in another city, live in another country … [they’re] just part of your life.”

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