#UrbanKidPenPal · written in December 2016
When I miss my father, I write an article.
In 1994 I was 13 and had a pen-pal: David G. Kendall, a professor at the University of Cambridge.
Not long ago I found one of his letters at home and wanted to look him up, to see if I could find him. I did. David passed away in 2007, at 87.
I was amazed to learn that David had been a giant of British mathematics.
My father, a local authority in the same world of probability, had introduced us at a mathematics conference in Sinaia. I think it was also the last time I left town with my father.
David Kendall was the first Professor of Mathematical Statistics at Cambridge University and the founding father and grand old man of British probability.
I wrote to David about my thrilling life at 13; he wrote back long letters, with numbered pages, folded down the middle and full of life lessons. They came in envelopes we did not have in Romania, with the Queen on the stamp.
I no longer remember how good my English was, but I am sure my father made sure I wrote something readable.
I remember being fascinated by his handwriting. It was not very legible, but his g’s and y’s had a personality I wanted to copy.
He told me about his everyday life, about his love of astronomy and archaeology, and the joy of finding a fossil shell at Whitby, on the north-east coast of England.
He went back every summer to the coast near Whitby, because his mother and all his ancestors had lived there, and every year he discovered new cousins.
It seemed amazing to me that such an important man found time to write to a 13-year-old kid. I liked to think that, as busy as he must have been, I was probably his only pen-pal, which made me value our friendship even more.
A few years later email went mainstream, and pen-pals carried on their lovely friendships through quick, cold messages that arrived instantly.
I don’t know about your children, but my daughter is just discovering the secrets of the alphabet and, although she has no homework (Waldorf, after all), I see her writing things on scraps of paper around the house. Her latest pen-pal was Saint Nicholas himself.
I would love her to write to other children. And I think others would love to write to her. What do you say, shall we go old-school?
You can do absolutely anything in life, with a single rule: do not bother the others.
Mihai Dragomirescu senior
What happened next · November 2026
The project took off. I did not see it through.
After this article, more than 70 children and adults signed up, from Romania and from Romanians abroad, from Norwich to Wil and Delft. The plan was simple: after 13 December I would match them in a spreadsheet and send each family the address of a pen-pal.
I never finished the technical part. The people who signed up never got a pen-pal. I owe them an apology, and I am making it here, where I made the promise.
In November 2026 I restarted the project, this time with a system that really matches people, by language, age and what they love. I have just emailed every family who signed up back then, with the date they joined and one question: would you still like a pen-pal? Whoever says yes goes first.
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