Pen friends meet for the first time in 50 years

Fifty years ago a little girl in the UK wrote to a little girl in Woombye asking her to be a pen friend, and so began a life-long friendship. Last week the two women met face to face for the first time in an emotional union and they have spent the most incredible week together.Woombye Identity Dawn Hebblewhite said it was almost surreal to meet Helen Garthwaite and her husband David who live in Yorkshire, "I was driving to the airport to pick them up and thinking is this for real, it was almost too hard to believe," Dawn said. "Everyone had a pen friend when I was growing up, in fact I had about six at one stage but Helen and I kept writing to each other for years. We have shared marriages, birthdays, heartaches and always send each other a postcard from where ever we travel to."In fact on the way  to Australia Helen said they had a stopover in Hong Kong, "I sent Dawn a postcard she is always the first person I send a card to when we go on holiday," Helen said. "The first letter I sent to Australia cost six pence and I think it costs a bit more than a pound to send a letter to Dawn now."Dawn has shown Helen and David the highlights of the Sunshine Coast as well as a quick trip to Fraser Island.  She hopes to visit the UK in the near future and spend more time with Helen and her family. The Gazette will keep you posted...