A couple from Singapore and Plymouth, England, are celebrating 30 years of marriage after meeting through letters as teenagers.
Chad and Alena Benson said they were partners and best friends. The couple who became pen pals aged 17 in 1986, are now marking nearly 30 years of marriage. Alena, from Singapore, initiated the exchange, writing to several people worldwide, including Chad from Plymouth. Their correspondence flourished from their first letters.
'My mother and father are self-employed fishmongers, and they own a shop in Stoke selling wet fish, shellfish, smoked fish, and also they fry fish and chips for their customers,' said Plymouth City Council gardener Chad when he introduced his family. 'I'm living in a small country called Singapore, very far away from England, but looking at the world's map, you can see that Singapore is surprisingly, very, very tiny,' said Alena when she described her home. Their letters continued through the late 1980s and in 1993, nurse Alena decided to visit pen pal Chad in the UK.Chad, 56, said on meeting Alena for the first time: 'She was just drop-dead gorgeous, I thought, 'Oh my. She can't be my pen pal.''After Alena returned to Singapore, the pair began daily phone calls, despite the high costs.'I think it was about £350 a quarter or something like that.' They also started exchanging cassette tapes of each other chatting, more than 100 tapes were sent between the two of them, before their relationship took a major turn.In February 1994, Chad visited Alena in Singapore and he proposed to her, despite initial resistance from her parents. 'I said I would not marry anyone else and they realised it was serious and they didn't stop me,' she said.Both admit that young people brought up with social media find it hard to understand that they met through the very analogue form of letters.They married on 17 February 1996, two years after Chad's visit to Singapore and now have three children. 'At the end of the day she's my best friend,' said Chad, who said he still listens to the cassettes at their home in Yealmpton, Devo
Love Story Pen Pals Long Distance Relationship Marriage Anniversary Old-Fashioned Romance
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