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.