This was published 5 years ago
Two of us: Penfriends brought together by the Vietnam war are reunited after 34 years
Nadine Taylor and Tien Nguyen bonded over the Beatles when they began to write to each other in 1964.
By Amanda Hooton
Nadine Taylor, 68, and Tien Nguyen, 70, became penfriends in 1964, when Tien was a student in Saigon, and Nadine lived behind her parents' shop in northern England. After a year of writing, the pair lost touch with each other for 34 years.
Nadine Taylor and Tien Nguyen, who left Vietnam: "It was heart-breaking, I could only see the open ocean, tears came down, 'Goodbye my country, never see you again.'"Credit: Louise Kennerley
TIEN: Our house in Saigon was very hot and crowded – I am the second of nine children – so I would ride my bike to the British Council to study. In breaks I read youth magazines. One day I saw "Pen Pals Wanted". I was 16. I sent my details and a few weeks later Nadine wrote to me.
A few other people wrote, too, but I chose her. I couldn't afford too many stamps! She lived in Southport near Liverpool, which was exciting: I loved '60s music, like the Beatles, and Liverpool was the cradle of that. She sent me magazines like Mersey Beat, which made me very popular!
She sent me a picture: a pretty girl with dreamy eyes, hair flowing in the wind. I was impressed. She also seemed kind: I was an avid stamp collector and she sent me first-day covers. She wanted a pepper grinder, so I sent her one.
We wrote until 1965, every three or four weeks. But I was studying for medical exams, then I joined the [anti-communist South Vietnamese] army as a doctor, so the correspondence drifted away. I was fighting in the jungle from 1973 until I was taken captive in 1975. Then I was in a hard labour concentration camp for three years, then sent to a TB clinic where I was only allowed to treat "productive" people – no one over 45.
That hurt deeply, and after a year I ran away
While I was in hiding, my fiancée [now wife of 37 years] Ai-Minh and I decided to leave Vietnam. It was heart-breaking. Once we set off and I could only see the open ocean, tears came down. "Goodbye my country, never see you again."
We were 33 people in a nine-metre wooden boat for 10 days. It's a miracle we survived. We would have easily capsized in rough weather, but the sea was like a swimming pool. Pirates wrecked our engine on day two, so we drifted most of the way. We were robbed seven times, but each time the pirates gave us food and water. We made it to Malaysia, then Australia in 1980.
In those years, I forgot all about Nadine – too many things were happening! Then, in 1999, a friend in Canada sent me an ad Nadine had put in a paper searching for me. Such a surprise!
Nadine is very curious. That's why she tried to find me. I was very impressed by her effort. We began exchanging occasional emails. Then, in 2008, she and her husband, Geoff, came to our home in Sydney and we met for the first time. It was like seeing an old friend. We got on very well. Of course I'd lost the photo, but it was the same person. Just older! She's a gentle lady, very graceful. She doesn't talk straight away: she thinks about what she's going to say.
I learnt that after she left school, she nannied in the US, got married, had two babies. The family moved back to England and the marriage broke down. Later on she met Geoff. We visited them in Liverpool in 2012 – we saw Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane, John's house. They visited again in 2013, then last year and this year, too.
In 2010, my daughter travelled to England, and Nadine gave her my original letters. I nearly cried when I got that bundle. To see my handwriting, the boy I was. I've never been back to Vietnam – not in 38 years. Those letters are the only object I have from my life there.
NADINE: I lived in Southport; Dad was a bricklayer and Mum ran our corner shop. When I was 14 my geography teacher offered us penfriends and I put my hand up. What surprised me about Tien was his perfect English and how normal he was: just an ordinary teenager. He loved pop music. Around that time the Daily Mirror published an article saying the only place people didn't know the Beatles was Vietnam. I wrote back, "My friend in Vietnam is very into the Beatles!" They published the letter.
We lost touch after a year, then I went to the US. I met a boy, got married, got pregnant, came back to England. Suffice to say it was a big disaster. I ended up raising my kids myself and living with my parents. Eventually I met Geoff, which was lovely.
I was always bothered by Tien. We'd talked about the war in our letters, and I didn't know if he was dead or alive. So when we went to Vietnam in 1998, we visited his address. On his street corner there was a motorbike shop. They'd never heard of him, but an old lady came past who said she remembered the family: they'd all gone to Canada. So I got the Canada White Pages, thinking: "How many Nguyens can there be?" Hundreds! I wrote to as many as I could: no luck. Then I found a Vietnamese newspaper in Toronto, so I wrote to the paper. A week later I heard from him.
I was so shocked the letter was from Australia! Then I was really excited. He was fine, he was a GP, he had a family – it gave me goose bumps. He's just a lovely, lovely man. And his wife Ai-Minh is gorgeous. You would never think they have been through what they have. And three lovely daughters, too: a very close, happy family. They do a lot for charity. On one trip they took us to a huge fundraising dinner, a thank you for the help they'd received as refugees. They're very conscious of that, very grateful.
I kept all his letters in a box in the attic. I knew he had nothing from the past, so when [Tien's second daughter] Giselle came to stay with us in England in 2010, I brought them down and said, "Give these to your dad." He's very much against Vietnam – the regime. He won't go back. That must be a sadness for him.
I do a lot of family history, and recently got a genetic connection to a Vietnamese woman, Huong Dai Nguyen. She was adopted: perhaps her father was an American serviceman – and some of my family did go to the US. I said to Geoff, "Perhaps Tien and I are related!"
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