80-Year Age Gap No Barrier To Eastbourne Penpals Heidi And Mary

A mutual love of books and conversation has formed an unlikely friendship at an Eastbourne care home, despite an 80-year age difference.

Mary Corin, 91, is a resident at Beechwood Grove care home on East Dean Road, and regularly exchanges letters with ten-year-old volunteer, Heidi Haffenden. 

When Heidi visits the home with her dad, Beechwood Grove’s General Manager, Dean Haffenden, she makes a beeline for Mary’s room to sit and chat and read with her friend.

“It all started when Heidi came in to read to us all and I thought she did such a lovely job, I wrote her a letter to say thank you,” recalled Mary. 

“She wrote back, and we’ve been exchanging letters for a year now.  I’m lucky, I don’t have to go out to the post box, I put the letters on Dean’s desk and he takes them home.

Photo: Heidi treasures Mary's letters

"I really enjoy her company, she’s such a delightful girl. I haven’t the mobility I used to have, and when I’m sitting in my chair and her smiling face comes through the door, it’s wonderful.”

Heidi, a pupil at All Saints CE School in Bexhill, said she loves spending time with Mary.

“We both like to talk a lot!  I tell her what I’ve been doing at school and she tells me all sorts of things about her life, places she’s been to. When I broke my arm, Mary bought a David Walliams book for me, and we read that together sometimes. She’s lovely.”

Global Intergenerational Week takes place later this month, from April 24 to 30 and celebrates the power of relationships between young and old. 

The residents throughout the 61-bedroom care home, which offers personalised residential, nursing, memory and respite care, benefit from Heidi’s company. She helps out with the activities run by the lifestyles team, but Dean said his daughter gets just as much from the relationship.

“She has a head start when it comes to history projects at school!” he said.

“Heidi was studying the Second World War and Peter, one of our residents, was able to give her a first-hand account of being an RAF pilot.  Another of our residents gave her a scone recipe using 1940s rations which she was able to recreate and take into school as part of her studies.

“Getting up at six o’clock in the morning to go into ‘work’ wouldn’t be every ten-year old’s dream way to spend their school holidays but she loves it!  She sometimes comes in with me at weekends, and often makes cards and pictures for her friends here. I think this might be her future career.”