A SPECIAL friendship, which started with a

chance meeting in Sri Lanka, is now celebrating its 43rd year.

Freda Gunningham met her friend Dharma when she was visiting Sri Lanka in 1957. After a five-minute conversation, she agreed to correspond with him - and is still doing so after 43 years.

Miss Gunningham, aged 83, said theirs was a special relationship which had stood the test of time and the thousands of miles that kept them apart.

"I flew from Singapore to Sri Lanka. I was sitting in a car park and noticed a group of beggars approaching," explained Miss Gunningham, of Cambridge Grove, Otley.

"I only had a 100 rupee note so I asked a young native, aged about 16, who was sitting nearby selling leaves for Betel nut chewing, whether he could change the note for small change. He answered in English and said he could. We chatted for a few minutes and then he asked me whether I knew anybody in England who could correspond with him. I said that I could and we exchanged addresses. I visited him again at his home in Badulla ten years later in 1967 and I stopped with his

brother - it was a real privilege.

"That's how our special friendship started. We've written to each other two or three times a year. I send him Christmas cards and, because he is a Buddhist, he sends me a New Year card back. I've seen him grow from a young lad into adulthood - he's now aged about 60 - and I always look forward to his beautiful letters dropping through the door."

Miss Gunningham, who was touring after a year's teaching in Vancouver when she originally met Dharma, was a founder member of Otley Art Club in 1947.

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