Visit any town or city and there is a great chance you will be greeted by a familiar sign that reads: ‘Welcome to [town] twinned with [towns from Europe]’. The country is covered with these signs, and Romsey is no different. But what is twining? And who are Romsey’s twins?
Naively, I first thought “twinning” was exclusive to towns with the same name. There’s a Romsey in Australia and a Southampton in America after all, so my logic seemed reasonable. The consequence of being a historically far-reaching country is that we came up with a majority of town and city names first, that later established countries would keep. Just look at the former territories from the Empire and pilgrims. English speaking nations today tend to have place names that derive from the first English settlers. Although similarities like a shared name or history do sometimes play a factor, the spirit of twinning is actually not so simplistic.
When the concept of “partnership towns” and “sister cities” was originally conceived is hard to say. The earliest recorded agreement most researchers cite is between Paderborn (Germany) and Le Mans (France) in 836AD, which was established by two bishops for the exchange of religious relics. But the twinning we widely see today comes from the Second World War. Post the war, twinning was encouraged as an act of building peace and reconciliation between nations – purposely pairing together damaged cities among Britain, France, and Germany. The most well known of these original pairings is between Coventry and Dresden – two cities that respectively suffered extensive bombing.
Today this form of paradiplomacy is practised globally and can run the spectrum of productivity. From a purely symbolic gesture of friendship to a practical emphasis on promoting trade and tourism. Legislature isn’t always necessary to bind these relationships. Usually they hang on mayor-to-mayor agreements and civic charters, and that’s what ultimately makes a partnership meaningful and strong. The appeal and potential of this type of relationship has never gone away.
Le Nost, Alain; Paimpol Harbour; Romsey Town Council; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/paimpol-harbour-25564
So who are our twins? Romsey is twinned with three towns. Our oldest partnership is with Paimpol – a small fishing port on the north coast of Brittany. According to Le Télégramme (a Brittany paper) the friendship began when ‘Admiral Louis Mountbatten befriended the Count of Mauduit whose castle in Plourivo served as a base for evacuating RAF pilots shot down over Brittany’. The partnership was ratified with a charter signing in 1960, with the two mayors and Mountbatten present. A gifted painting of Paimpol Harbour by Alain Le Nost (1934) is displayed in the Town Hall.
Battenberg (1987) is our second – a hilltop town in central Germany, and for those who don’t know, the ancestral home of the Mountbatten family. Being a resident of Romsey, the connection makes symbolic sense.
Treviglio (2014), based outside of Milan, is our newest friend of the three. The relationship was initiated by a teacher from Treviglio, who saw the experience of different cultures important to student education.
Evidence of these partnerships can be seen around Romsey. There are streets named after each town, a tree gifted to us from Paimpol in the Memorial Park, and the market occasionally sells vegetables from Brittany. And for the occasional town-wide event, Treviglio likes to send street performers and musicians.
To maintain these unions is the responsibility of Romsey Twinning Association. They are essentially our representatives, and their duty includes organising alternating goodwill trips – sending and receiving delegates to festivals and celebrations. Each exchange, which in the past has involved sports fixtures and hosting students, gives the chance to make new friends and experience different cultures. These receptions also allow residents to interact and promote their homes as holiday destinations. We are lucky to have a strong appeal with our proximity to cultural interests such as the New Forest, Winchester, Stonehenge etc.
In 2020, coinciding with the Romsey Festival, a celebration to commemorate 60 years with Paimpol was planned called Twinfest – supported by Test Valley Borough of Culture. Delegations from each of our twins were to meet together for the very first time to mark the anniversary. Sadly it never happened due to the Covid outbreak. Nevertheless, there is a shared pride with our counterparts over the long continuing commitment of friendship – enduring even the worst world dividing times.
If there ever was a time to stay connected to our European neighbours, surely it is now. By expanding Romsey’s outreach in international siblingdom, we can ensure prosperity and cross-border engagement for the long term.