{"id":1965,"date":"2013-01-21T16:27:50","date_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forcespenpals.net\/p=?1965"},"modified":"2013-01-21T16:27:50","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:27:50","slug":"penpals-celebrate-55-year-friendship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forcespenpals.net\/gb\/news\/penpals-celebrate-55-year-friendship\/","title":{"rendered":"Penpals celebrate 55-year friendship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Rushenden woman is looking forward to celebrating 55 years of having a penpal.<\/p>\n<p>Penny Townsend has been writing to Bonnie Hoffman in the US since May 1958, Kent Online reports.<\/p>\n<p>During this period, they have met each other on eight different occasions, most recently in 2011. Despite living nearly 4,000 miles apart, they consider themselves to be best friends.<\/p>\n<p> Speaking of the first time they met, Ms Townsend said: &quot;At first the children had a job understanding my accent, but they got there in the end and now they all call me Aunt Penny.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>She added she has been able to fulfil her two main ambitions of flying on a plane and meeting her penpal.<\/p>\n<p>However, the pair have not been afraid to embrace digital technology as they now email each other, instead of sending letters like they used to when the friendship first started out.<\/p>\n<p>Posted by Samantha Thompson<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"ADNFCR-2867-ID-801525788-ADNFCR\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.directnews.co.uk\/feedtrack\/justcopyright.gif?feedid=2867&amp;itemid=801525788\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Penny Townsend and Bonnie Hoffman have been penpals for 55 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Penpals celebrate 55-year friendship - Forces Penpals GB<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/forcespenpals.net\/gb\/news\/penpals-celebrate-55-year-friendship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Penpals celebrate 55-year friendship - Forces Penpals GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Penny Townsend and Bonnie 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