{"id":189507,"date":"2023-12-05T10:21:38","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T10:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsneednews.com\/?p=189507"},"modified":"2023-12-05T10:21:38","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T10:21:38","slug":"centenarian-penpals-insist-its-just-a-friendship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsneednews.com\/lifestyle\/centenarian-penpals-insist-its-just-a-friendship\/","title":{"rendered":"Centenarian penpals insist &apos;It&apos;s just a friendship&apos;"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1> World&#8217;s oldest pen pals, both 100, have been keeping in touch across the Atlantic for 85 years &#8211; but now chat via Zoom with the help of &#8216;the younger people&#8217;<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Geoff, from Devon and Celesta, from Texas, both 100, are still penpals\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>READ MORE:\u00a0A red letter day! British woman finally meets her pen pal in South Carolina 68 years after they first started writing to each other<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The world&#8217;s oldest pen pals who have enjoyed a transatlantic friendship for almost 90 years have revealed they&#8217;ve brought their relationship into the 21st century by now communicating on Zoom &#8211; but they insist there&#8217;s no romance involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Centenarians Geoff Banks, from Honiton, Devon and Celesta Byrne, from Texas in the US, started writing to each other aged just 16 in 1938, after meeting through a project uniting teens across the Atlantic.<\/p>\n<p>Geoff, a former engineer, even kept in touch with Celesta during WWII\u00a0when he served as a mechanic on British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious in the Pacific.<\/p>\n<p>The pair met for the first time in person in 2002, in New York, and met again later in 2004 &#8211; Celesta has insisted they are &#8216;just friends&#8217; despite a relationship spanning almost nine decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Now the pen pals have both turned 100, they have switched from pen and paper to Zoom calls (with the help of their children) in order to keep in touch &#8211; something George enjoys because writing has become &#8216;difficult&#8217; for him.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/05\/09\/78586887-12826745-Pictured_left_is_Geoff_Banks_from_Devon_at_a_rare_meet_up_with_C-m-1_1701770124313.jpg\" height=\"438\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Pictured left is Geoff Banks from Devon at a rare meet up with Celesta Byrne, from Texas<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/05\/09\/78587315-12826745-image-a-17_1701768641458.jpg\" height=\"434\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>With the help of their children, Mr Banks (pictured) and Ms Byrne have been able to embrace new technology and chat over video call<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/05\/09\/78587063-12826745-image-a-16_1701768328185.jpg\" height=\"357\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Geoff Banks (pictured) reads letters sent to him by Celesta Byrne in their long transatlantic friendship<\/p>\n<p><span>He<\/span>\u00a0said: &#8216;I honestly struggle to remember how we got in touch, but I was talking to Celesta recently and I think it was something to do with an American school&#8217;s scheme&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Geoff recalls he was in his final year at grammar school when he was matched up with the American Celesta and they began chatting &#8211; but then the war got in the way, making it difficult for them to keep up regular contact.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;There were a couple of years where we struggled to keep in touch because of the war, but some of my mail I had sent to her during the war was returned to her after it ended and she wrote me back&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>After 85 years of friendship, Celesta also struggles to write these days, and is also partially sighted. Therefore, Geoff arranges calls via email with one of Celesta&#8217;s daughters, who lives nearby.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Geoff said: &#8216;We just talk about daily lives and our families really. I think in one of my early letters I sent her a copy of a British paper in 1953 which had Queen Elizabeth II&#8217;s coronation on the front of it.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/05\/09\/65090855-12826745-The_two_live_almost_5_000_miles_apart_but_have_continued_their_p-a-18_1701768763525.jpg\" height=\"545\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The two live almost 5,000 miles apart but have continued their pen pal friendship since 1938<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/05\/08\/78586885-12826745-image-a-2_1701765178597.jpg\" height=\"902\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The two have maintained friendship after a staggering nine decades of friendship that was facilitated by their schools. Pictured here is Geoff, aged 100 (2022)<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;She acknowledged receipt of that, but we generally just chat and put the world to rights you know. She&#8217;s a very interesting person.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;She&#8217;s always been there to write to, even if it was just birthday cards and Christmas\u00a0cards.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Other topics of conversation include Celesta&#8217;s pet chickens and both of their families\u00a0but Geoff has stressed that they don&#8217;t discuss the football.<\/p>\n<p>Despite having such a unique relationship, the pair deny there has ever been any romantic feelings on either side. Both the pen pals have been married, and Geoff&#8217;s wife of 63 years passed away in 2011.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;No, we&#8217;re just friends, like people who live next door. It&#8217;s nice to hear his voice,&#8217; Celesta said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/05\/09\/78587055-12826745-image-a-15_1701768321675.jpg\" height=\"357\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Geoff Banks was originally given Celesta Byrne&#8217;s address in 1938 when he took part in an educational project connecting young British and Americans. Pictured: letters sent between the two of them\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Geoff is now a great grandfather, having sadly outlived his daughter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He has three other sons scattered around the world and many more grandchildren.<\/p>\n<p>Recalling the time he first met his pen pal, Geoff said:\u00a0&#8216;I&#8217;d worked abroad for a number of years but had not been to the states for some time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Celesta was in New Jersey, so we decided to meet up in New York for a short Christmas trip.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It was all very good, and actually we met up again in 2004 when she invited me to her house for lunch.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>He also revealed how his relationship with Celesta has evolved over the years, adding:\u00a0&#8216;I have this new thing called Zoom I think now to chat with her, but I leave all the technology to younger people. They&#8217;re much better at pressing all the buttons.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/femail\/article-12826745\/Worlds-oldest-pen-pals-100-keeping-touch-Atlantic-85-years-chat-Zoom-help-younger-people.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>World&#8217;s oldest pen pals, both 100, have been keeping in touch across the Atlantic for 85 years &#8211; but now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189506,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Centenarian penpals insist &amp;apos;It&amp;apos;s just a friendship&amp;apos; - News Need News<\/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:\/\/newsneednews.com\/lifestyle\/centenarian-penpals-insist-its-just-a-friendship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Centenarian penpals insist &amp;apos;It&amp;apos;s just a friendship&amp;apos; 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