An American writer who honed her craft as a young girl by writing to identical twin sisters from Battersea is searching for her long-lost pen pals.

Feature writer Joann Cantrell, 55, who regularly contributes to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is hoping to make contact with the twins before she comes to London for the first time next month.

She said: "In 1968 there used to be an organisation called the World Pen Pals Organisation and they matched people up who wanted to write to someone abroad.

"I was in third grade, about eight or nine years old and I was matched with two sisters from London, Babs and Irene Davies.

"We were in touch for about five years. I have still got the letters. I unfortunately don't have their photographs."

Barbara (Babs) and Irene Davies would now be 55. They attended Clapham County Secondary School and lived at 14 Stanley Grove in Battersea.

Mrs Cantrell said: "It's like a story that you don't know how it ends.

"I feel like after five years I became a writer and heard hundreds of interesting stories and I feel like I had a long term writing relationship and that's where I honed my writing skills as a little girl and I have a curiosity about how they turned out.

"They were my only source of knowledge about England and a place that I never got to and through our letters they told me about trips they did and what they learnt at school and I learnt a lot about them at a time before we had the internet.

"It was such a different time but it's like finding a long lost friend and someone who was part of my childhood."

Anyone with information about the twins should email louisa.clarence@london.newsquest.co.uk, or call 020 8722 6335.