BRISTOL grandmother Lynda Turner is going to New York next week to see her American pen friend after writing to her for a lifetime.

Lynda and Sherilyn Serfass were born just a day apart on opposite sides of the Atlantic and became penfriends through the Pillarbox Club in the Evening Post 54 years ago.

They exchanged thousands of letters over the years, recording family milestones such as their marriages and children's and grandchildren's births.

Lynda, from Stockwood, who has three children and two grandchildren, first met Sherilyn, 61, in 1997 on a surprise holiday arranged by her husband Mike.

He spent months organising flights, booking hotels and secretly making arrangements with Sherilyn.

Mrs Turner, who will visit Sherilyn at her country home in Owega, New York State, with daughter Paula, 35, said: "I had no idea that Sheri was going to meet us at the airport.

"She was looking for a woman with dark hair as I had dark hair when I was young. I saw this woman trying to climb over the barrier and it was Sheri. She was crying, I was crying.

"She said to me during that first visit that we are like sisters – and we are.

"We are both only children and it is nice that we are so close despite only meeting once."

During her first trip to New York, Mrs Turner and her husband visited famous sights including the Statue of Liberty and Bloomingdales.

Mrs Turner, who is retired, said: "Sheri and I have different characters, but our lives have followed similar courses. Sheri married her husband Bob a year and a week before Mike and I got married and she had two boys and I had two boys and a girl.

"She is quite a serious person and I like fun things, going to shows and shopping. We got a computer about seven years ago and we email each other and send photos.

"I think I prefer letters though – the whole family reads the emails."

Mr Turner, a former production control supervisor at Bristol engineering company Strachan and Henshaw, cannot go to America this time because of ill health.

Mrs Turner said: "I'm really looking forward to meeting Sheri again and she said she is really excited to be meeting my daughter Paula for the first time."