Dear Hilary, Thank you very much for your letter and the photograph.  I’m very busy now before Christmas and so I send you only this card.  I hope you excuse it.  So I wish you and your family a merry Christmas and a happy new year ! Yours Claudia

A lovely Northern European illustration sending good wishes for Christmas and New Year.

The postmark date is 22.12.80 so it probably arrived after Christmas.

Claudia and I became ‘pen pals’ when we were at senior school.  I would write to her in German and she wrote in English.  Claudia’s English was far superior to my German, so eventually we just communicated in English.  She was a conscientious correspondent often writing lengthy letters about her life.  We met for the first time when I was in Norway and she planned her inter-rail trip to include Oslo.  Then in the mid nineties (after 20 years of exchanging news) Claudia went quiet, no letters, cards, Christmas cards – nothing.  I tried to contact her parents by letter and more recently have searched social media sites without success.