THE Internet has not only brought Mildred Earles news about her former fiance, it has also helped her to renew a close friendship with an old school pal.

Mildred and Doris Swindells were classmates and great friends at Farnworth Grammar School in the early 1950s. But they lost contact when Mildred left Bolton for a new life in 1964.

"I honestly had no idea where in the world she was," Mildred told the BEN from her home in Victoria, Australia.

"We lost contact a long time ago and we were such good friends."

It was when Mildred's eldest daughter, Suzanne registered with the Bolton Worldwide Netlist, a BEN directory of Internet users around the globe, that the name Doris Donnellan (nee Swindells) caught Mildred's attention. Doris now lives with her husband, Mike, near Wellington, New Zealand.

"I knew from the details of her entry in your directory that it was my old school friend who I used to go out with at weekends in Bolton," said Mildred. "I got in touch with her straight away and we now write every week. It's wonderful."

Mildred and Doris are two of several former friends around the world who have made contact again through the Bolton Evening News on-line services.

If you would like to be registered with the Bolton Worldwide Netlist at no charge, send your name, email and postal address, with a line or two of biography, to:

asmith@lancashire.newsquest.co.uk

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.