Newspaper Articles
Article published in the Worcester News on 14th October 2022
Historic visit to Vernon marks delayed 15th Anniversary of City’s Friendship Pact!
At last we celebrated the 15th anniversary of our Friendship Pact with Vernon, Normandy! The smooth Channel crossing by ferry to Dieppe, sitting out on deck enjoying the late August sunshine, was followed by a leisurely car journey to Vernon the next day, where we received a warm welcome from our friendly host families.
On Friday morning we attended the “Saga Familiale” Exhibition at Vernon Museum. After lunch we visited the Tilly Monument, a boulder of granite quarried from the Malvern Hills, which is a memorial to the men of the 1st Worcestershire Regiment who lost their lives in the liberation of the village in 1944. An official Commemoration Ceremony took place at 5pm at the “Place de la République” in the centre of Vernon, where I laid a wreath at the foot of the Memorial with a sense of pride and national identity, but also a feeling of great sorrow at the huge loss of life.
After a drinks and refreshments reception in the square we enjoyed a romantic impressionist adventure along the Seine in a small open boat to a restaurant, where we were joined by members of Vernon Twinning Association for a splendid dinner.
On Saturday we visited the world-famous Museum of Impressionism and Monet’s house and garden in neighbouring Giverny. During the evening we went to a family run Cider Farm in Tilly for an interesting talk by owner Michel Galmel with cider and Calvados tastings, followed by superb buffet supper, prepared from local produce, and of course accompanied by the farm cider.
Sunday began with a guided tour in English at the Comb and Finery Museum in Ezy. After lunch we continued to the magnificent Château at Anet, a masterpiece of the French Renaissance, built in 1552 for the fabled beauty, Diane de Poitiers.
We are truly grateful to the organisers and host families in Vernon for their superb programme and overwhelming hospitality.
Rosemary Campbell, Chair, City of Worcester Twinning Association
For more information about this anniversary trip to Vernon please visit: https://www.worcestertwinning.org.uk/home/index.php/vernon/221vernon-15-1-anniversary
Worcester News Article for July 2022, published on 12 August 2022.
Not Eurovision, but Mondiovesinion!
After a two year pause our Fête de la Marguerite visit resumed on Friday 24th June when a small group of members from Worcester arrived in Paris, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Le Vésinet’s twinning with Oakwood, USA.
The beautiful setting of the “Pavilion des Ibis” in the park by the lake for the Gala Dinner on the first evening was a wonderful start to the weekend events. These traditionally include the “Dîner en Blanc” on Saturday, which has now become a worldwide phenomenon. Our hosts bring tables and chairs to the park and create an elegant lakeside dinner party and all participants must wear white. There is always a full day excursion on Monday and this time we visited the historic town of Compiègne and its impressive Imperial Palace.
But 2022 was also a very special year because it was the première of the Mondiovesinion International Singing Contest! Susannah Greenow, a former HOW College student represented Worcester in the final. We proudly watched her brilliant performance on the open-air stage at the Fête. She sang “Tears Dry on their Own” by Amy Winehouse and “Blue Skies” by Irving Berlin, which the enchanting world-renowned Josephine Baker, former resident of Le Vésinet, performed in 1927. The other finalists came from USA, Australia, Spain, Germany and France and each was presented with a trophy from the organisers in Paris. Thirtytwo video applications were initially received and assessed by an international panel of judges. The musical genres were amazingly varied – religious, opera, jazz, pop, rock, country. The contest was a huge success and attracted a large audience. The friendship between the finalists when they all sang together at the end was a joy to behold. There will surely be another contest in June 2023!
https://www.worcestertwinning.org.uk/home/index.php/le-vesinet https://jumelageslevesinet.com/fete-de-la-marguerite-3-anniversaires/
We would welcome applications from singers in the Worcester area for 2023. The winner will be invited to stay and perform on stage in Le Vésinet during the Fête de la Marguerite.
Rosemary Campbell, Chair of City of Worcester Twinning Association
Worcester News article for March 2022
The AGM of the Worcester Twinning Association took place on Monday 28th February in the Assembly Room in the Guildhall. It was attended by the Mayor, Stephen Hodgson, and about 20 members in person with another 4 joining by zoom.
After the business and light refreshments, the meeting concluded with a talk from historian Dil Porter exploring some of the interesting links between the city and Worcester, Massachusetts, USA.
During the First World War, Worcester – inspired by its Mayor, Arthur Carlton, gave a warm welcome to American troops passing through England on their way to the Front after the USA joined the war in 1917.
Carlton was very active in a movement which saw English cities ‘adopt’ American cities with the same name. Soldiers from Worcester, USA on leave or recovering from wounds, were encouraged to regard Worcester, England as their second home.
Though the war ended before the scheme was fully developed, it generated much goodwill. Schools from the two Worcesters were linked via a ‘pen-pals’ scheme which continued after the war was over.
Another legacy of efforts to bring the two cities together was the football tour which saw a team of amateurs, workers in the factories of Worcester County, arrive in England to play matches in Worcestershire in 1926.
A similar team representing Worcestershire visited the USA a year later. It was the trip of a lifetime for those lucky enough to be selected. Soccer was popular in Massachusetts in the 1920s so football was seen as a good way to build bridges between American and English working men. Two more tours followed in 1929 and 1930, before the Slump brought the arrangement to an end.
Dil is researching these tours and would be delighted to hear from anyone who can supply more information (
Worcester News Article for October 2021
The city of Kleve in Germany is probably our most successful twinning partnership. We have been twinned with Kleve for thirty-two years now and our friendship with this city is continuing to thrive.
England’s association with Kleve goes back to medieval times when Henry VIII married Ann of Cleaves and she became his fourth wife and queen. Kleve was known as Cleaves back in medieval times.
Evidence of our friendship with Kleve can be seen mainly on our riverside where Worcester’s riverside path is called Kleve Walk.
Over all these years our members have had one week exchange visits to Kleve. One year we go to them and the next year they come to us. We stay as guests in each other’s homes and we make strong friendships with our host families and we learn a lot about each other’s way of life and their culture. We have excursions every day to explore the attractions of the host country. Because of the pandemic we have not been able to visit each other for the past eighteen months but we hope that our German friends will be able to visit us in 2022.
Our German friends in Kleve come to our Christmas Fayre every year but they will not be coming this year to sell their Gluhwein and Stollen because of the pandemic.
The Worcester Twinning Association has enriched the lives of all our members and I’m sure that the members of our twin towns associations will say exactly the same thing. We celebrate life with them and we cherish all the common threads in our lives and we value our differences.
Article by Margaret Tyas Kleve Liaison Officer
Worcester News article for September 2021
Charter 400 twinning column
On October 2nd this year Worcester will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Charter given by James 1 which allowed the city to have a mayor. Worcester Twinning Association is joining in these festivities by producing an album of the history of twinning in the city, and although it doesn’t stretch back 400 years to the date of the charter, it has been 34 years since Worcester signed its first twinning agreement with Kleve in Germany. Worcester now has 5 twin towns, Kleve, le Vesinet, Worcester USA, Ukmerge and Gouzeaucourt, and one Friendship Pact with Vernon in France.
Members from the Twinning Association went on a Charter 400 walk, with Paul Harding from Discover History, in June, to learn more about this important anniversary and about Worcester’s first mayor Edward Hurdman who was elected to the position in 1621. The walk began outside the Guildhall and Paul took us down Copenhagen Street to the South Quay and from there to All Saints Church in Broad Street opposite which there was a house that Edward Hurdman lived in from 1618. It was here that he died in 1635 and was buried in All Saints Church in December of that year. Members found the walk and the talk very interesting and everyone enjoyed the opportunity to learn a bit more about our city’s history.
Some of Worcester’s twin towns will have existed in 1621 albeit in a very different form. Liz Smith, the Chair of the Association, has been finding out what was going on in our twin towns 400 years ago, and that information is in our album. Do come along to the Guildhall on 2nd October and have a look at our photos of a more recent part of Worcester’s history and remember the Charter and our first mayor Edward Hurdman.
Jo Hodges Vice-President WTA
Worcester News Article for August 2021
Worcester Twinning Association Zooms over to Paris for “Grande Soirée”
In mid-June members always travelled to our Parisian twin, Le Vésinet, for the Fête de la Marguerite. Alas this has not been possible for the last two years due to Covid restrictions. Instead, we decided to have a musical Zoom event to celebrate the Fête de la Musique, which apparently originated in Paris in 1982 and has now become an annual global tradition on 21 June.
Worcester was immensely proud to showcase two very talented young musicians at the Grande Soirée. Susie Greenow, former HOW College student sang “Blue Skies”. This jazz song, composed by Irving Berlin in 1926, was also sung by the world-famous Josephine Baker, who lived in a beautiful Louis XIII style mansion in Le Vésinet for some years. Susie’s superbly creative toe tapping performance, her flowing melodic lines and vivacious personality did not disappoint! 15-year-old Abby Warner delighted us with her own composition “Hide and Seek”. She sang and accompanied herself on the guitar and amazed us with her awesome video and recording technical abilities. We wish Susie and Abby every success for the future!
There were musical contributions from Le Vésinet, Outremont (Canada), Unterhaching (Germany), Hunters Hill (Australia), Villanueva de la Cañada (Spain). Otto from Unterhaching was quite the hero and deserves a special mention. Having already performed his German song in the style of Georges Brassens, he spontaneously kept us entertained with a medley of songs in different languages during the interval of the concert. Bravo Otto!
The Grande Soirée was a huge success and was very well attended by members and friends from twin towns. It enabled us to have an informal friendly get-together, learn more about the music and culture of the twin towns and keep us all up to date with the latest Twinning news.
Rosemary Campbell, Vice-Chair WTA
A decade of twinning with Lithuania
In 2011, the mayor of Worcester signed a twinning agreement with a town in Lithuania called Ukmergė. In May of this year, the then Mayor of Worcester, Cllr Jo Hodges, met virtually with the Mayor of Ukmergė, Rolandas Janickas, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of this twinning. Jo spoke about the warmth and kindness shown to her when she went to their summer festival. She recalled going to a school for their “last bell ceremony”, the final assembly for 18 year-old students; Jo was asked to talk to the students in the school hall – they all understood English and hung on her every word.
The Lithuanian Mayor said how much he appreciates the annual invitations to our Christmas Fayre. The presence of Ukmergė ladies selling their hand-made products in our High Street is the way many Worcester people know about our Lithuanian twin town; the ladies smile or sing to passers-by, and their products are very popular.
Rolandas went on to present Terry Coles (the Twinning Association’s Ukmergė liaison officer) with the Ukmergė Mayor’s Special Award for “the active promotion of cooperation between Ukmergė and Worcester”. He made some very complimentary comments about Terry, and said that he would put the actual Award (a badge and ribbon) in the post. In thanking him, Terry spoke about the Lithuanian Ambassador making the initial contact with Ukmergė (the Ambassador’s home town), and recalled many productive visits to the town over the years, helping in schools, and meeting many delightful and hospitable people.
The meeting ended with the Ukmergė Mayor presenting the city of Worcester with a gift to commemorate our 400 year-old Charter. He played us a very unusual song (about hope and energy), performed by a local, award-winning ladies’ choir. What a delightful end to a memorable ceremony
Article by Terry Coles published in WN July 2021
Worcester and Gouzeaucourt link up again
Imagine the scene: not a single house left standing, rubble filling the streets and no water supply. This was the scene in many towns in our nearest neighbour, France only 100 years ago, at the end of WW1. They were desperate for help and Worcester answered the cry from Gouzeaucourt in 1921, adopted the small town and helped this French community get back on its feet. Today they no longer need our help but, to commemorate the centenary of this historic event, the 2 mayors, Jo Hodges and Jacques Richard “met” in May on computer screens. The mayors looked resplendent in their chains of office, for the watching virtual crowd of Gouzeaucourt councillors and members of Worcester Twinning Association. Jacques recalled that “The town was completely destroyed and you came to our aid and gave us a new water supply”; Jo stressed the importance of friendship and cooperation across boundaries. Then, simultaneously, both mayors signed a new twinning agreement, accompanied by the strains of 2 national anthems. The meeting finished with glasses raised on both sides of the Channel for a toast: “Vive le jumelage” (Long Live Twinning).
Sadly, the man who reunited the towns is no longer with us. Several years ago, local historian Lucien Defawe approached us for 1921 cuttings from the Worcester press to go into his WW1 exhibition. We searched the archives in the Hive, sent the cuttings and made new friends across the channel. Then we went over to commemorate the Battle of Cambrai (1917), which had involved the Worcestershire Regiment and relatives of the present Lord Lieutenant of Worcestershire. After that, the Worcester Male Voice Choir sang in their church, accompanied by a superb local orchestra – this really was an occasion, which we hope to repeat in the not too distant future.
Article by Terry Coles, published in WN June 2021
Worcester Twinning Association celebrates 25 years of twinning with French visit
By Alicia Kelly aliciakellyWNReporter
NEVER mind Brexit, Worcester Twinning Association celebrated the 25th anniversary of its liaison with Le Vésinet with a four day visit to the leafy French town, which stands on a loop of the River Seine 12 miles from the centre of Paris.
It was back in 1994 the French Connection was formalised when Le Vésinet's mayor joined a party of 12 of its leading citizens for a weekend in Worcester to attend the formal twinning ceremony in the Guildhall.
Around 20 members of WTA made the return trip this summer, travelling by coach from Croft Road to the western suburbs of the French capital.Their visit included a special 25th anniversary ceremony, which took place outside Le Vésinet's Town Hall.
Worcester’s deputy mayor, Jo Hodges, gave a speech in French and English and presented a gift to the Mayor of Le Vésinet. Representatives from all Le Vésinet’s twin towns took the opportunity to chat to old friends and new, while enjoying drinks and a buffet lunch provided by the town council. In the afternoon a fashion show was held in the town centre, followed by an Elgar concert.
In the evening there was a “Dîner en Blanc”, which took place by the town lake. Everyone dressed in white and the atmosphere was enhanced by twinkling candles and lamps. This was followed by a Fête de la Marguerite, when the parishes of St Marguerite and St Pauline invited everyone to an open air Mass on Sunday morning. Host families organised a picnic for the traditional family garden party lunch in the park.
On Monday morning, before boarding the coach for the homeward journey, the visiting party attended the start of Caryl and Lyndon Bracewell’s bike ride back to Worcester in aid of Alzheimers and Dementia charities.
Councillor Hodges said: “Worcester Twinning Association would like to thank their dear friends in Le Vésinet for a fantastic 25th anniversary and the generous host families who looked after us so well.”
Worcester News 17th September 2019
TWINNING: How city keeps in touch with its twin towns
In the first of an occasional column, Liz Smith, chairman, Worcester Twinning Association, tells us how city keeps in touch with its twin towns
Worcester maintains regular contacts with most of our twin towns, but one of them, our namesake, Worcester in Massachusetts USA, is a long way away, and maintaining such regular annual visits is challenging.
It was therefore a great pleasure that the Worcester Chorus choir from Worcester Mass made Worcester UK one of its stops on a recent singing tour of this country. They arrived in the Faithful City with true American energy: after an all-night flight from the US they took in a visit to Windsor Castle on their journey here.
With only one full day in Worcester most of their time was taken up with rehearsals before singing in the Cathedral for Evensong. Then off to their next destination – Coventry – in the morning.
However, a number of the 59 strong party stayed with members of the Twinning Association, while other members were able to join the Choir for lunch at the Cricket Club between rehearsals.
We were joined by former mayor Derek Prodger with his wife Mary on this occasion. Derek was instrumental in promoting this twinning over 10 years ago.
Worcester’s other twin towns are in Europe, and over the years many lasting friendships have been formed.
Members will be visiting Kleve in Germany, our original twin town this month and, earlier this year, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of our twinning with Le Vesinet while Worcester members have joined with the people of Ukmerge in Lithuania for their annual festival.
Worcester also has a temporary twinning with the village of Gouzeaucourt in France, the village they helped in the aftermath of WW1 and a Friendship Pact with Vernon, the city liberated by the Worcestershire Regiment after the D Day landings in 1944.
Article by Liz Smith Published Worcester News 3rd September 2019
Raising funds for the Alzheimer Society
Lyndon and Caryl Bracewell have successfully completed a sponsored cycle ride as part of the 25 year Twinning Anniversary celebrations between Worcester and Le Vésinet in France. The journey of around 300 miles from le Vésinet took Four days to reach Worcester They are hoping to raise as much money as possible to contribute to the research into the causes and cure of Alzheimer and dementia.
For those who would like to add to their sponsorship, details and a link to their Just Giving page can be found at: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/carylandlyndonbracewe
Published Worcester News 26/07/2019
Contact Us
For further information about the City of Worcester Twinning Association please send an email to info@worcestertwinning.org.uk
Twinning arrangements are managed by the City of Worcester Twinning Association, a voluntary self-funding body, independent of Worcester City Council, from whom it receives no money.