Twinning and you’re winning? TheMoveChannel.com investigates the phenomenon of town twinning and asks whether it really is just an excuse for a bunch of councillors to have a free holiday or whether it brings any benefits to the towns in question…
Twinning towns is a concept whereby towns or cities in geographically and politically distinct areas are paired, with the goal of fostering human contact and cultural links between their inhabitants.
Some towns don’t spring to mind as having twin potential. The Midlands cathedral town of Worcester recently tried to twin itself with Gaza in a show of support for the Palestinian people. Unsurprisingly, this twin-ship was turned down.
The earliest form of town twinning in Europe was between the German city of Paderborn and the French city of Le Mans in 836, although this was not officially established as a modern town twinning arrangement until 1967.
The first recorded modern twinning agreement was between Keighley, West Yorkshire and Poix-du-Nord, Nord, France in 1920 following the end of World War I. The practice was continued after the Second World War as a way to bring European people into a closer understanding of each other and to promote cross-border projects of mutual benefit. Coventry twinned with Dresden as an act of peace and reconciliation as both cities having been heavily bombed during the war.
The first city in North America to establish a sister city relationship was Toledo, Ohio, United States, with Toledo, Spain in 1931. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada was also a notable city to enter into an intercontinental twinning arrangement when, in 1944, it twinned with the Ukrainian city of Odessa, which at the time was part of the Soviet Union.
How do towns decide on a twin – is it a prerequisite that they have some geographical or social element in common?
The similarities between Reading in Berkshire and Speightstown on Barbados’ glitzy west coast don’t immediately spring to mind. The justification of the linking of these two starkly different towns is that reading has a large Barbadian population.
I can’t help but feel that the Reading residents got the better deal with this one when the time comes for an exchange programme.
The village of Whitwell on Rutland Water, which could never be described as a cultural metropolis, is twinned with the French capital, Paris. You may wonder how this partnership came about – I’ll tell you. A group of Rutland locals wrote to the former Mayor of France, Jacques Chirac to ask to be twinned in 1980. They took his lack of response to be a yes and the signs went up announcing the twinning and still stand today.
The benefits of twinning include an exchange programme which allows locals from each town to experience life in the other. Twinning visitors are accommodated in the home of a host family and are expected to offer hospitality to guests on the return visit. Many close friendships have been formed over the years, sometimes extending over several generations. It can also be great for learning a new language but many council tax-payers feel that town twinning is a shocking waste of public money.
Since the Millennium, town twinning has been seen by the European Union as an important tool in the bringing together of Europe’s citizens, with a desire that they should learn about and promote the virtues and values of the EU as a concept.
Thus, the idea of twinning is politically-charged in some people’s eyes. The EU website describes twinning as one of the ‘most visible and lasting ways of bringing people from different countries together under the European banner, which is why the EU has been supporting it since 1989.’
The site also states that the ‘one major advantage of town twinning is that it involves large numbers of citizens directly, driving home the benefits of EU integration at the local level.’
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