Maintaining Links: a celebration of town twinning by Julie Mabberley of Wantage and Grove Campaign Group

IN common with many towns and villages around the county, Wantage and Grove are twinned with other towns in Europe. Twinning is a formal connection with a community in another country, to build up contacts and to promote friendship and a better understanding of each other’s culture, language and national characteristics. Both Wantage and Grove are twinned with Mably in France and Wantage is also twinned with Seesen in Germany.

Seesen is a town near Goslar, in Lower Saxony, Germany and has been twinned with Wantage since 1978.

Mably is a small town on the Loire near Roanne in the centre of France and has been twinned with Wantage and Grove since 1991.

Normally each group comes to visit us every two years and we go to visit them in the intervening period. The visitors stay with residents of Wantage and Grove during their visit and go on trips each day to sites of interest nearby.

This year was slightly special in that we have seen visits to Wantage from a group of civic dignitaries from Seesen as well as a group of regular visitors from Mably. Members of the German Twinning group in Wantage will be paying a visit to Seesen next month.

The Mayor of Seesen, Erik Homann, and his colleagues came to Wantage on a civic visit in June coinciding with the Queen’s birthday weekend. One of the first duties of our Mayor Steve Trinder was to organise the visit. The visitors enjoyed the birthday celebrations and meals in our local pubs as well as the more formal links with local businesses and Councillors.

In July, a group of residents from Mably came to visit and to celebrate the 25th anniversary of our towns being twinned.

This year, at the final party on July 14, the Wantage Silver Band played the Marseillaise and Steve Trinder, Grove Parish Council chairwoman June Stock, Chairwoman of Wantage French Twinning Group Alison Davidge, and Chairman of the Mably English Twinning Group Josiane Lepicier, all agreed that twinning would be more important after Brexit not less important.

Trips to and from Mably are usually organised in school holidays so there is no reason why families could not take part.

As someone who has recently got involved in this activity I can definitely state that it’s a very good way to improve your language skills and to understand a little more about the everyday life of a similar community in another country.

I’d like to encourage everyone to get more involved and to take the opportunity to strengthen our ties with other countries in Europe regardless of Brexit.