Penpals meet 40 years after their friendship began via message in a bottle

Instead it was an invitation for friendship - that has lasted for a remarkable 40 years.

Rosalind wrote back to Sandra Morris, also eight, who had jettisoned the bottle over the side of a cruise ship as she travelled home to the USA from a holiday in Europe.

Pen pals: Sandra Morris-Cpezla (left) and Rosalind Causey meet 40 years to the day their friendship began via a message in a bottle.

And this week the pair of life-long friends met up at the precise spot where Roslaind found the floating note.

Sandra, now Mrs now Mrs Morris-Czapla, wrote on a postcard: 'Whoever finds this bottle write to me...' and added her address to the note she placed in an empty wine bottle.

Three months later, her friend-to-be was walking on a beach near her home in South Wales with her headmaster father when she spotted something glinting in the sand.

Sandra Morris aged eight pictured on board the Neuw Amsterdam in the Atlantic Ocean, moments before throwing the bottle containing her note overboard

The two girls started writing to each other straight away - and have been in touch ever since.

Yesterday the pair visited the spot at Morfa beach near Margam, South Wales,  where Rosalind found Sandra's message washed up on the beach in 1968.

Rosalind, now Mrs Causey, an IT consultant from Haverhill, Suffolk, recalled: 'I took the cork from the wine bottle, replied to Sandra's little note, and we have been in touch ever since.

Best buddies: The friends wrote about their 'amazingly parallel lives'

'We started writing to each other all those years ago and have become very close friends.

'I used to love seeing the postman bring me a letter with a US Air Mail stamp - although in these modern times we have now moved on from sea-mail to e-mail.'

She added: 'Our friendship grew through our letters as we shared amazingly parallel lives.

'We each have two children - a boy and girl - and our eldest were born just 10 days apart.

'It was lovely to visit the spot where I found Sandra's message in a bottle.'

The pen pals, both now 48, met for the first time in 1976 - eight years after they started writing to each other - when Rosalind and chartered surveyor husband Mark flew to the USA to meet Sandra.

The pair's children - Mrs Causey has Rhiannon, 17, and Ivan, 14, while her pen-pal has Austen, 17, and Ahna, 15 - have also become firm friends after sharing a Disneyland holiday together.

Sandra - and living in Pennsylvania with her golf course manager Doug - said: 'It was lovely to visit the spot and it was a great way to celebrate the 40th anniversary of a very unusual friendship.

'You often hear stories of messages in a bottle floating thousands of miles but how often do you hear of people actually meeting up and making a connection as a result?'