Well travelled photo

I’m trying to organise all my old photos as they’re currently somewhat erratically arranged in ancient photo albums that take up lots of space. I came across this one - I hadn’t seen the back of it for decades so it made me smile.

First of all I want to point out the cowboy boots and gypsy skirt, which I had sewn broderie anglaise around the hem of to increase the authenticity. I was very pleased with that outfit I remember. Also I have a perm but that’s another story. I’m in Bulgaria on a ski trip in 1979. I was 14 and I can’t actually believe my parents let me go - we flew on a plane that was, shall we say, basically functional. There was hardly any snow. The food was unspeakable - to get to the soup you had to crack the layer of fat on the top. It was early days for tourism there and I think a few bus loads of kids from Plymouth were the guinea pigs. My ski jacket came from C & A - those were the days - and my mother insisted I have a flight bag for the plane. I hated skiing with a passion - probably because we had to spend hours on a coach getting to a small patch of grey snow at the top of a mountain. I took a huge ancient camera and a roll of 24 film - most of the photos were rubbish so I ended up with about 6 that were passable.

At the time I had a German penpal, Doris Busmann. She asked for a photo of me so I sent this, and as you can see, I asked for it to be returned because photos back then were so incredibly precious. I remember she sent me a photo of herself and said I didn’t have to return it - I couldn’t believe it!

I wonder if penpals are still a thing?