By Press Release
Despite being a regular visitor to Germany for most of my adult life, and having long-standing friendships there, I was, when living on the Island in the 1980s, only vaguely aware of the Isle of Wight’s long-standing twinning with Ostholstein county, in northern Germany, and of Medina Borough Council’s twinning, since 1983, with Coburg in Bavaria, the birthplace of Prince Albert.
In 1989 I left the Island to take up the town clerk’s post in Dronfield, Derbyshire. Dronfield had a very active twinning with Sindelfingen in south-west Germany, although the two places couldn’t be more different. Dronfield, although largely a dormitory town with 25,000 residents, midway between Sheffield and Chesterfield, has a very strong sense of community and many active local societies, not least its town twinning federation. Sindelfingen is much larger, with a population of around 70,000, and is home to the Mercedes Benz car factory and IBM computers. It has twinning arrangements with towns in several other countries.
One of my first duties was to arrange a civic visit to Dronfield by a delegation of councillors, officials and journalists from Sindelfingen. This included arranging for councillors and twinning federation members to host the 20 visitors and putting together a programme of visits and meetings on a shoestring budget.
My interest in twinning continued when I moved on from Dronfield as two of the towns where I subsequently worked had twinning arrangements with Germany and I had further involvement in organising visits and being a part of delegations.
In 2003 I returned to the Island and was keen to continue my interest in German twinning. I and my partner, Cathy, joined the Isle of Wight German Twinning Association. By this time the Ostholstein and Coburg associations had merged, largely due I suspect to dwindling numbers of members.
In 2013 I was pleased to be part of a small delegation which ran a stall at the Coburg Christmas market, handing out promotional material and selling Island produce including beer, honey, jam and garlic products. Island attendance at the Christmas market continued until 2018 and a firm favourite, with the Coburg residents, proved to be Mermaid gin. Sadly, we have not attended the market since 2018. A combination of Covid restrictions and export regulations arising from Brexit means it is no longer feasible for a small organisation. This has sadly coincided with a reduction in the number of active members of the Isle of Wight German Twinning Association. The sad truth is that those of us who are actively involved are getting older and younger people are not joining. At the same time, austerity has meant that the Isle of Wight Council is no longer financially in a position to provide the support for twinning that it once did.
Whilst the twinning association in Ostholstein is no longer active, that is not the case in Coburg where their association is thriving, due in no small part to the support they receive from the Coburg City Council.
This year, 2023, marks the 40th anniversary of the Coburg twinning. A delegation from Coburg will be coming to the Island in May and a programme of activities is being put together. It is hoped that a reciprocal visit to Coburg will take place in the Autumn. Once these activities have taken place, unless renewed interest is shown in our association and its contacts with Germany, it is almost inevitable it will go the way of other twinning associations on the Island and fold.
Anyone interested in getting involved in the association is welcome to contact me on 402259 or by email at bobblezzard@btinternet.com.
Pictured: Bob,Cathy, and two Coburg Twinning members at the 2018