Enough’s Enough In The

Fiji Reader M. T. Pezet has Trouble with Pen Pals and Postage Stamps

Enough’s Enough In The Tranquil South Seas!

When we first came to Fiji, life was quiet and uneventful and I faced no greater hazard than those of multiplication, that is, being fruitful and multiplying. True, we were living on a South Sea Island, although we never experienced the “high adventure” associated with such a life by people who don’t live there.

YTHEN my older children had ff learnt to write, they sent let ters to the children’s pages of woman’s magazine in Australia.

After their first letters were pub shed, with their names and ddress, the greatest peril of ving in the South Seas soon came ome to us.

Letter after letter came in to the hildren, asking for stamps and en-friends. Those asking for tamps promised to send some in “turn.

Well, the children didn’t save :amps, but those letters had to be nswered.

As my children suffer from the ell-known Malua Fever, (“Never 0 today what you can put off till imorrow”), I sorted used stamps tid soaked the paper off them, and ;ood over the children while they rote letters in reply.

Alas, people who are the first to sk for something for themselves pparently are the last to thank du for it.

No Replies

In vain did my children wait for ;plies to their letters and the [•omised stamps.

When a letter came from a oman asking if we knew someone ith whom she could correspond id exchange stamps, I wrote to 3r myself giving her the address : a few people in the Philatelic iciety in Suva.

At the same time, a woman from orth Queensland wrote asking if ie children would exchange shells ith her.

Most of our coastline is mangrove /amp, and when we go to the ;ach we do not collect shells.

However, I wrote to her and sent ir a cutting about a newly-formed lell society in Suva. I noticed that either one acknowledged my let rs and information.

Every now and again a chain let r arrived. These were thrown to the waste paper basket. 1 objected to keeping the chain

going by asking my friends to send postcards to people they didn’t know. And I wasn’t going to be bludgeoned into it myself by the information that “polio patients” were in it.

As for sending tea-towels to strangers! If I were going to re stock anybody’s linen cupboard it would be my own!

They Poured In

By this time, more letters asking for stamps (but not sending them) poured in every time one of the children had something published.

My children still didn’t collect stamps.

Among the letters was one from a boy in New Zealand enclosing a little collection of nice New Zealand stamps. My eldest wanted to keep them, so once more I sorted out stamps and stood over him while he replied.

The upshot was that the young N. Zedder sent more stamps. The eldest never replied, and then came another letter from New Zealand with more stamps, asking if he had received his previous letter.

To end this unasked-for corres pondence, I wrote to the little boy asking him not to send any more stamps as the eldest really wasn’t very interested and he just would not write letters.

I enclosed an unused 5/- stamp which I bought him for his trouble.

Desperate!

The result was that I soon had a letter thanking me for it, and ask ing me if I would send him stamps if he sent stamps to the eldest.

And his mother would like a pen friend!

Things were now becoming des pcratG At the same time I had a letter from a woman in America who had seen my children’s name in the magazine.

Her hobby was corresponding

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with people all over the world but she had no correspondent in Fiji.

Would I?

I wrote back telling her that I was among the world’s worst corres pondents, and gave her the name of a local paper which I was sure would advertise for pen-friends for her if she asked them.

She replied that if she did that c he might get more than she could handle (apparently she was com

stely ignorant of the local Malua ver>, and would I find a cores ident for her? 3y this time, we had had so many bers from strangers asking for ngs, especially stamps, that I )te a paragraph about the prob i in an Australian weekly maga e, under a pen-name. l few weeks later I received two ;ers which had been sent to the gazine for forwarding on. )ne enclosed some stamps and ed for some Fiji ones.

Tie other—wonders never cease! heartily concurred with my con ination of the modem young”

I enclosed some stamps for my idren, and asked for absolutely King in return. was so grateful, I immediately ite thanking him and enclosing le stamps for any young rela is he might have.

Thanks, Thanks

also sent some stamps to the er correspondent, thanking him the Australian stamps he sent politely omitting that we al iy had a stack of Australian nps we couldn’t jump over, put in a number of used ones bought a few small denomina i stamps of which I didn’t have i ones, and put a higher value np than I need have on the en >pe, e replied promptly, thanking me the stamps, enclosing more Aus ian stamps I didn’t want, and i enclosing a list of more stamps I like me to get for him.

Hiat am I to do?

II I have ever done is sympathise i a few collectors and oblige n by sending stamps at their re ■>t. ut I don’t save stamps. My

dren’s stamp-saving is almost

sly theoretical (and all I can do ut stamps aside for the day when r might possibly be interested). i fact, I am now building up an nse dislike of stamps, he word stamp is becoming to what a red rag is to a bull; and is not quiet and uneventful any e.