French Twin

Culcheth has a Twin Town, Saint-Leu-la-Forêt, which is located only 12 miles from Paris. I wondered if this Twin Town link is still active or is Saint-Leu-la-Forêt now just an old friend that we never contact anymore? I've lived in Culcheth a long time but I have never visited Saint-Leu-la-Forêt and I've never seen any visitors from there in our village. I guess Twin Towns were a good idea after the second world war but perhaps now their time has passed. I know that they are still active in some places but I suspect that they are less relevant in most towns now than they were once. With globalisation, easy travel, internet, social media, etc our links abroad are now different and more diverse.

Town twinning started in Europe after the second world war. The idea was to repair damaged relationships between countries by encouraging people from similar towns to meet and get along with each other and to support rebuilding. It could encourage trade as well as friendship. A good idea at the time. Nowadays people can travel all over Europe easily and cheaply and twinning with one town seems unnecessary. Where twinning is still active I guess it is where they have built up a strong, mutually beneficial relationship and a shared history over a long time.

Anyway, I thought I would check out whether Culcheth and Saint-Leu-la-Forêt are still close friends and perhaps we would be sending commiserations for their recent troubles. I have to report that it appears we have drifted apart. I couldn't find anything relevant in our village. Even worse, when I checked the Saint-Leu-la-Forêt website I found that it says they are twinned with Wendlingen-am-Neckar in the south of Germany. No mention of Culcheth. Oh well, it looks like our old friends have forgotten us, but maybe that is our fault for not taking enough interest. In any case we can still wish them well now.