A French connection

absolutely perfect, and I found it difficult to make an interesting letter out of my French, so we eventually agreed to correspond in English.”

The teenagers wrote to each other a few times a year, exchanging birthday cards, aerograms and small gifts at Christmas.

With the responsibilities of adulthood, their letters became less frequent, but never stopped. After leaving school, Pat worked as a librarian in Parnell before marrying, moving to Te Puke and starting a family with her husband Michael. In Europe, Mijane led a very different life as a tour guide and frequent traveller. Then in 1966, spurred by Pat’s repeated invitations, Mijane confirmed she was coming to New Zealand.

She describes that initial meeting after 12 years of exchanging letters: “The most amazing thing is that when Pat and I met after my three-week voyage to New Zealand, it was close friendship at first sight!”

A farm in Te Puke was a massive change for a girl who’d grown up in post-war Paris, but Mijane was so taken by New Zealand that she extended her visit to nine months and found a job at Victoria University. She made friends, toured the country, and became godmother to Pat’s second-born son.

In subsequent years, Pat visited France several times and Mijane made more trips to New Zealand.

“It’s been a lifelong friendship,” says Pat. “We know each other very well indeed. We’re like sisters but we don’t fight.”

Both have two sons and their families and grandchildren have continued the Franco-Kiwi connection, visiting each other’s countries.

“In 2013, when I went and stayed with Mijane in Paris for six weeks, we had a lovely time and I started picking up more of the language,” says Pat. “Sadly, I knew it would be my last trip to France. I love France and I miss Mijane – she feels the same – but we email and speak on the phone all the time.”

Thanks to her husband’s work, Pat has lived in a number of North Island towns, as well as in Noosa and Papua New Guinea, where she continued working as a librarian. While most of the letters she and Mijane exchanged over the decades were lost in those moves, both women cherish their memories of anticipating and receiving news from the other side of the world.