A couple who met as teenage pen pals are now toasting 28 years of marriage.
Alena and Chad Benson started chatting via letters in 1986 when they were both just 17-years-old.
Nurse Alena, now 55, wrote to several people worldwide including fishmonger’s son Chad.
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But her connection with Chad, of Stoke-on-Trent grew stronger and stronger.
“It was me who started it,” Alena, from Singapore said.
“At school we had the International Youth Service encouraging teenagers to write to other countries.
“I just sent it for the fun of it not thinking that I was going to get a reply.
“But I had replies from Australia, Germany and the UK.
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“Chad’s letter arrived a month after the others.”
Their correspondence took off from their first letters as reported by What’s The Jam.
When he introduced his family, Chad wrote: “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.
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She replied: “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.”
Their letters continued through the late 1980s and in 1993 nurse Alena decided to visit Chad in Plymouth, Devon.
“We kept talking about meeting.
“I was working as a nurse full time and I just wanted to travel so it was just a stopover to come and see him,” said Alena.
“I had the money and I was brave enough and I thought I’d go and see him.
“And over I came.”
Chad, 56, said on meeting Alena for the first time: “When I met her at the airport she was just drop-dead gorgeous, I thought, ‘Oh my.
“She can’t be my pen pal.”
The visit only lasted 19 days but after being platonic for eight years they then realised their bond was more than just friendship.
After Alena returned to Singapore the pair began daily phone calls despite the high costs.
Chad added: “Alena returned to Singapore after 19 days then we started ringing each other – I mean every day.
“My mum said, ‘Chad you’ve got to pay this bill off’.
“I think it was about £350 a quarter or something like that.”
They also started exchanging cassette tapes of each other chatting.
Over 100 tapes were sent between the two of them and Chad still listens to the them at their home in Yealmpton, Devon.
“They’re great,” he said.
“They were a lot of work especially if you made a mistake.
“But I did it and I loved doing it.”
Their relationship then got serious.
In February 1994 Chad visited Alena in Singapore and he proposed to her despite reluctance from her parents.
Chad added: “I said to my mum and dad, ‘Oh I’m going over there if Alena can do it I’ll do it’.
“I said I would not marry anyone else and they realised it was serious and they didn’t stop me,” she said.
Alena moved to the UK in 1995 bringing with her all the letters and cassettes they had exchanged.
Chad added: “We broke up once at that time – it only lasted five days and I wanted to pick it up again.”
Alena agreed saying: “I was very sad.
“I felt a part of me was gone, something was missing.
“I felt, ‘we can’t just finish like this’, we’d been friends for over ten years by then.”
They married in February 1996 two years after Chad’s visit to Singapore and they now have three children.
Both agree that youngsters brought up with social media find it tough to understand that they met through letters.
The International Youth Service which gave the impetus to the letters exchange has since closed.
“At the end of the day she’s my best friend,” said Chad.
“And Chad is my best friend,” said Alena.
Their wedding was the culmination of their decade-long story from pen pals to life partners.
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