A Bermondsey great-grandmother has been sharing letters with a German pen pal since World War II.
Sylvia Perkins, 88, established correspondence with Lisa Kull in 1948 while a student at Monnow Road Girls’ School, now Spa School.
77 years later, the duo still exchange letters, with Sylvia receiving a Christmas card from Mrs Kull, 89, only last month.
Joanna Hopkins, Sylvia’s daughter, said: “They have been writing to each other ever since. At first, it was lots of letters a year and then it became only Christmas and birthdays.
Sylvia Perkins has written to her German pen pal ever since the post-war years. Credit: Sylvia Perkins
“Now it is just Christmas cards. They are now 88 and 89 years old… I think that is pretty special.”
Mrs Perkins, who believes she was the only one in her class who continued to write letters, has never heard Mrs Kull’s voice after 77 years of correspondence.
And although the school project began because of the war, she and Mrs Kull never spoke about it.
Joanne continued: “I think in 1986 when my mum was turning fifty and we were organising a surprise Birthday party we were chatting with Lisa. That was the only time we tried to get her over.”
“They were twelve when they first started writing and as they met partners they wrote about that, then getting married, then what their families were doing,” she added.
The most recent letter, from Lisa to Sylvia, says: ‘Dear Sylvia, another year is over and we are one year old. 88 and 80.’
It continues: ‘2024 was a good year with good health. I am in my house and I can do my walks. For you and your family a very happy Christmas and a healthy 2025. Yours Lisa.’
Tens of thousands of children are believed to have had pen pals in post-war reconciliation efforts led by schools, churches and the British Council.
Ossana von Wiese, mother of Southwark councillor Irina von Wiese, met the Queen thanks to an Anglo-German exchange initiative.
Born in Cologne in 1926, she traveled to Britain as part of a cultural exchange programme around 1947.
But just days into her tour, outside St Paul’s Cathedral, a double-decker bus ran over her foot, flattening it.
Ossana couldn’t complete her tour because of the injury.
Fortunately, her mother, a Russian refugee, had met a British woman from Windsor in Germany in the 1920s and formed a life-long friendship.
So Ossana stayed at their family home. The father of the family happened to be a forester on the Royal Family’s Windsor estate.
One morning, Ossana attended a chapel in Windsor. But when she went to rise during prayers she couldn’t because her foot hurt so much.
The Queen, then Princess Elizabeth, 21, the same age as Ossana, asked her why she couldn’t stand and Ossana explained her ordeal outside St Paul’s Cathedral
Princess Elizabeth then congratulated Ossana on her English and they spoke in-depth about British-German reconciliation.