Pen pals from SG and Canada meet in person after 43 years

SINGAPORE: Two women from different parts of the world have known each other for more than four decades but have never seen each other in person. They finally got to meet face-to-face recently.

The story of Sonya Clarke Casey, who’s from Newfoundland, and Singaporean Michelle Anne Ng, was told in an Oct 20 (Monday) report on Canada’s public broadcaster CBC, along with an audio clip of the women sitting down with an interviewer to tell how their long correspondence started.

They first got in touch in 1983, when Ms Ng was age 12, in Primary 6, and Ms Clarke Casey was in fifth grade. Ms Ng told the interviewer that her teacher encouraged her to join the school’s pen pal programme to help her improve her English skills.

Ms Clarke Casey explained that the programme had been a project of the International Youth Service (IYS). The IYS, which was based in Finland, started in 1952. It matched young people from around the world through letter-writing. After traditional mail declined as the internet grew more popular, the programme closed in 2008.

She sent one out and recalled that she felt “exhilarated” when she received her first letter back from Carbonear, a small town on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Like many girls who grew up in the 80s, Ms Ng found herself shopping for the best stationery that could be found, and using it to write to her pen pal.

Ms Clarke Casey, on the other hand, told CBC that she had several pen pals but especially looked forward to Ms Ng’s letters, as she always wrote her back. She added that Ms Ng is the one she’s still friends with after all these years.

Their friendship turned epic, spanning 43 years and counting, and when Ms Ng flew to Newfoundland recently, the two women met for the very first time.

Their lives through their letters

What’s special about the bond the two women have shared is that they’ve been there for each other through some of the most important milestones of their lives, such as going through university and motherhood, as well as more everyday things like popular songs and the weather.

In the interview, they read aloud parts of the letters they sent to each other throughout the years.

For example, in 1987, Ms Ng wrote to Ms Clarke Casey, saying, “I haven’t heard from you for a long time. I guess you are very busy, right?… How is life getting on? Are you having your holidays or are you struggling for your exams?”

“The weather here is starting to warm up. Today it’s 4 degrees! Do you have a boyfriend now?” wrote Ms Clarke Casey to Ms Ng in 1992.

Finally meeting in person—and a hug

While the two women had always ended their letters to each other with the hope that they would someday meet, this was never a sure thing. After all, Singapore and Newfoundland are 14,000 kilometres apart.

Through the years, they’ve also emailed and used Messenger to communicate, but they never stopped writing actual letters, the report says.

When Ms Clarke Casey had a chance to visit her friend, she was so excited to see Ms Ng that she couldn’t sleep the night before they met, and when she went to the airport to pick her up, they finally had a chance to give each other a big hug.

Read more about their story and listen to the interview they gave CBC here. /TISG

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