The Dunedin teacher could not believe it when Waikato man Karl Booth recently got in touch about a letter she sent to him when he was serving in East Timor in 1999.
"I was amazed.
"It sort of took me back in time."
Miss Cairns had written the letter to Mr Booth during her time at St Francis Xavier School in Dunedin.
Mr Booth returned the letter with his response.
The more she read the letter, the more memories it brought back.
"The teacher was able to capture how the soldiers might be feeling and I’ve really thought about that in my letter."
The whole experience reinforced how important a teacher’s role was and how much of an impact gestures such as letter writing could have on people.
It was nice to know it meant a lot for Mr Booth to receive the letter from her all those years ago, she said.
She recalled getting her pupils to write a letter to former prime minister Dame Jacinda Ardern a few years ago and the smiles on their faces when they got a response.
Mr Booth told the Otago Daily Times he got in touch with Miss Cairns after rediscovering the letter while looking for old defence force items for a MBA project he is completing with the University of Waikato.
Looking at the letter more than 25 years later had been emotional and a reminder of what it meant to him at the time.
When deployed to East Timor, Mr Booth was just 22, had a 3-month-old son and had been in the army for only about two years.
"I was just a young man and I suppose it was all a bit nerve-racking."
Back in those days soldiers could only make a phone call once every couple of weeks with a satellite phone.
The letter from Miss Cairns was one of the only letters he received from anyone outside of his family.
After all these years, he thought it would be a good idea to reach out to Miss Cairns so she would know he received that letter.
"I thought it would be quite cool for someone just to know that we received that and at the time it meant quite a lot."
