France/ Twinning La Milisse- Swineshead: the end with regrets

La Milesse and the village of Swineshead, near Boston in north-east England, have been twinned since 1987. The beautiful story is over.

La Milesse (Sarthe) and the village of Swineshead, near Boston in north-eastEngland, have been twinned since 1987, an initiative of Pierre Hamel, the mayor at the time. The twinning committee grew to 35 families, before gradually dwindling over the years "mainly due to ageing and a lack of renewal on the English side", laments Marie-Noëlle Royneau, who has been president since 2010. The club celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in 2017 with a casino evening and the publication of a retrospective booklet. "The English came back in 2019, then came the health crisis, and since then people have been more than a little reluctant to travel on either side of the Channel.

"Unfortunately, everything has to come to an end".

"We've had some great years, traveling by coach and then on our own, enabling some people to extend their stay". Naturally, friendships were forged, and "some of us still see each other". Unfortunately, all things must come to an end, and decisions had to be made. "We had the choice of mothballing or disbanding. We opted for the latter, because it's much easier to travel now than it was when we started.

The last members decided to liquidate everything, making people happy: "We make donations related to English". Scrabble games were donated to the Centre Social's leisure center, and English-language comics were donated to the library. the library, a donation to the elementary school with the purchase of methods for learning English, and the purchase of books for the nursery school.

"We're looking forward to the warmer weather, when we'll organize a final picnic to bring the association to a close.

The various presidents.

Jean-Claude Lebreton, Maryvonne Gadras, Jean-Pierre Chamballu and Marie-Noëlle Royneau.

Source: actu.fr/pays-de-la-loire/