TWINNING NEWS

LONG WITTENHAM TWINNING ASSOCIATION

Volume 1 issue 7 October 2002

We are proposing to have another French meal at Yew Tree Cottage. This will take place on 16th November and tickets will cost £8 for members and £10 for non-members. This price will include one glass of wine. Those who have been to previous meals will know that they are an excellent convivial way of spending an evening with good food and wine. Due to constraints of space tickets are limited so get yours soon!

Tickets available from Eva Sawers (407515), Isabel Henderson (407314) or Gwen Brookes (407377)

This year a lot of original members have not actually renewed their membership. This is probably due to us not having established an efficient collection or reminder system. If you either have not renewed your membership or are not sure whether you have please contact the treasurer, Jenny Garlick on 407954. Membership is £5 per annum per household and is used towards general fundraising and running costs. As you will see from the prices for the forthcoming meal, we also try and reduce the cost of events for members.

At a recent committee meeting it was decided to make available an annual bursary of £100 to a young person from Long or Little Wittenham or the surrounding area covered by the twinning association, to assist with the expenses of a personal visit to Thaon.

The object of the bursary is to make it easier for someone studying, or with an interest in, either French or another subject (e.g. business studies, history, geography, catering etc) which could be furthered by a visit to Normandy to visit the area.

We are trying to make the conditions as flexible as possible but we would expect the visit to be for a minimum of 2 weeks and for the young person involved to have at least a basic knowledge of French

(i.e. to have studied it at some time even if it is a bit rusty). This is to ensure that some benefit may be gained from the visit.

Through our counterparts in Thaon we would be prepared to assist with finding accommodation and if necessary some work although this cannot be guaranteed.

To apply for the bursary please write a letter giving details of why you wish to visit the area, what you would hope to do while you are there, and what benefit you feel you would gain from the experience. Please send the letter to Robin Sawers at Frenchs, High Street, Long Wittenham. All applications will be considered by the committee in January 2003 and all applicants will then be informed of the results.

One of the great things about going anywhere abroad is that it gives you the opportunity to savour some of the local specialities. France has always offered an excellent range of cheeses – and in Thaon you are certainly spoilt for choice. Normandy is home to some of France’s best.

Camembert. Smooth and so smelly that it is guaranteed to deter anyone from opening the boot of your car during the homeward journey!

• It was first created by a farmer called Marie Harel, from the Norman village of Camembert, with the help of a priest, who was hiding in her house during the French Revolution (c. 1789).
• It was without a name until Napoleon III called it Camembert at the end of the 19^th century.
• It is made from unpasteurised cows’ milk, which should not be heated above 40ºc. It is stirred and as it sets a white crust forms.
• 125 million litres of milk are used in the production of Camembert each year.
• The first person to package Camembert worked at a saw mill, hence the famous wooden container.

We have again exchanged visits this year with our partners in Thaon. Having got the formalities of the official twinning ceremonies successfully completed last year, it was now a question of cementing relations and continuing the process of getting to know one another better, and the way we live in our two villages.

On the weekend of the 18th/19th May a group of 27 from Thaon arrived in Long Wittenham. We were pleased to see that several families came complete with children, so there was a good sprinkling of young people. This was made easier by having the visit on the Whit weekend, when the Monday is still a holiday in France, so there is no school (or work) to dash back for. Our guests were consequently able to stay longer, not leaving until Monday morning. After activities with their host families on the Saturday, the whole group came together with their hosts and others from Long Wittenham for an informal supper at the home of Clive and Margaret Antcliff in the evening. This made a wonderful setting in the middle of the woods, although the weather could have been kinder. After an alfresco start, the cold and the occasional shower later in the evening drove most people indoors. The young people, and some of the not so young, joined in a treasure hunt around the garden organised by Clive Antcliff and Richard Kewish.

The weather behaved itself better on the Sunday afternoon when most of the group and their hosts went on a return boat trip from Folly Bridge in Oxford which Salters put on for us. This allowed our French visitors to see part of Oxford and its surroundings from the river, going up beyond Iffley Lock. Nobody fell in, and there were plenty of birds to observe, of the feathered and the non-feathered variety, as several girls’ college crews were busy practising for Eights Week. Long Wittenhamites paid for themselves and the Association paid for our guests from funds, which seems to have worked very well.

In July a group from Long Wittenham went to Thaon to join in their July 14th celebrations (held on July 13th!), which this year took the form of an agricultural show ("Fête des Battages") recalling conditions 50 years ago. After heavy rain the day before, tons of straw had to be put down on the soggy field, but the weather on the day was fine and warm. The range of demonstrations varied from milking (with the chance to drink the result!) to washing clothes in a traditional lavoir and threshing with a vintage machine.

One tent housed a reconstruction of an old-fashioned schoolroom, presided over by our friend Nicole Duclos, wife of the Thaon Association’s secretary and a former (head)teacher. There was also a big collection of old tractors as well as some old cars for good measure. The show was attended by a really big crowd from Thaon and the surrounding villages, and come lunchtime they all had to be fed! This was achieved very successfully by the hardworking army of grillers and other cooks, who provided more than a thousand meals, washed down with the local cider. That evening a similarly large crowd gathered for a dinner under canvas in the village by the sports ground, which was followed by a torchlight procession round the village, with a splendid firework display to cap it all. This didn’t start until midnight, so they were on the 14th (just).

At the dinner we were very kindly treated to some particularly good calvados, so I asked whether it would be possible to buy some the next day, and accordingly a few of us went to Billy where Monsieur Vauvrecy has his beautiful old farm and produces not only "calva" but also apple juice, cider and pommeau. There we were introduced to a particularly charming and fluffy donkey foal before being shown the apparatus and having it explained (and making our purchases of course). Then as a complete contrast we went to what is claimed to be the only radar museum in existence, set up in a German WW2 radar station. There are many such reminders of the war in the area, particularly of course on the beaches where the D-Day landings took place.

Not all of us came home on the Sunday this time, as some stayed to include the weekend in a longer holiday in France. Others had made the weekend in Thaon the end of their French trip. So why not make the Thaon weekend part of your French holiday next year?

Robin Sawers

If you have any queries on this newsletter please contact:

Trish Gilbert (Chairman) Tel: 01865 407858

Robin Sawers (Secretary) Tel: 01865 407515

If you wish to join the association, or renew your membership, the contact is:

Jenny Garlick (Treasurer) Tel: 01865 407954