Old Friendships Renewed and New Friendships Made

In 1992 a young Singaporean couple arrived in Swindon and moved in just round the corner from us. Alfred was doing his Masters Degree at the Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham, about 8 miles from where we live and his wife, Jenny, was a housewife.

One Sunday they came to our church and we befriended them - asked them round for a meal and after that we became firm friends and saw each other regularly both during the week for meals and at church on a Sunday.

We knew that they would not be here for that long, as the course was only for a year, but in that time we had many great times with them. Often, quite late in the evening, there would be a knock on our door, and Jenny and Alfred would be standing there, holding bags full of aromatic Chinese food that Jenny had just cooked and they said they wondered if we would like to share it with them. It was quite hard sometimes, as we had often had our evening meal, but not wishing to offend, we always invited them in and shared. I learnt all I know about Chinese cooking from Jenny so I taught her how to cook a few English meals including roast beef!

When Jenny's parents and a friend visited them, they came to our home for meals too - which made things quite interesting as her parents didn't speak any English and we couldn't speak Mandarin but we managed. I couldn't even pronounce their Chinese names, so I called them Susie and Charlie and they were quite happy with that. I have never seen anyone wield chopsticks like Charlie - he could completely strip a cooked trout within minutes!

They flew back to Singapore just before Christmas 1992 and were really happy as Jenny was pregnant - we realised how much we would miss them and were really sad to see them go.

The following year was our Silver Wedding Anniversary and they invited us to stay with them in Singapore where we had a fantastic time. Alfred, Jenny, their family and friends made us very welcome and the bonus was that Hannah was born on 8th May and we flew home on the 9th May. What timing!

We haven't seen them since 1998 but today they arrived, with friends from their church, Patricia and Simon, to spend a few hours with us before moving on to Stonehenge, Newquay and Land's End before they are fly back to Singapore on Friday.

After a lovely meal in a local Chinese restaurant they came back to our house for a cup of tea and we took a few photographs in the garden before they left to go back to their hotel.

We really enjoyed seeing them again and the years just rolled away! We all agreed that none of us looked any different - well the only one who did was Hannah, as she was a 1 day old baby when we left Singapore and 5 years old in 1998!

It was fantastic to remember all the fun things we did together and who knows we may meet again some day!