Henley Falaise Leichlingen Twinning Association

RESIDENTS of Leichlingen were presented with pictures of Henley during a cultural exchange trip.

A group of about 20 residents from the Henley Falaise Leichlingen Twinning Association travelled to the town in North Rhine-Westphalia to meet with counterparts in Leichlingen’s Henley Club.

The trip lasted eight days during which the group also explored Münster and Düsseldorf.

On the final night of the exchange, during a farewell dinner, Henley’s twinning association presented host chairwoman Helga Schumacher with a framed collage of images taken in Henley during the coronation of King Charles III.

Patrick Fleming, who chairs the group, said: “They were amazed, they loved it. At their heart they are royalists. They have a president so do not get all the glamour of a coronation, but they watched it all on television.”

Mr Fleming said the group were welcoming. He said: “They are sad that the UK left the European Union and worried that there is more distance between us so they made a huge effort to show us around and take us to things.”

The group visited the Schlossturm tower in Düsseldorf together as well as the Picasso museum in Münster and Schloss Münster castle.

Mr Fleming said: “Last year the Leichlingen Henley Club came to England but this was our first time to see them since the coronavirus pandemic.

“The last time I was there it was 2019 so it was quite an emotional event and we were so glad to see each other.” He said that one of the highlights of the trip was attending the regional North Rhine-Westphalia parliament in Düsseldorf.

Mr Fleming said: “It’s equivalent to the devolved Welsh and Scottish parliaments here. We were kindly hosted by Romina Plonsker, a member of parliament who represented an area near to Cologne.

“She had a great interest in British-German relations and was part of a working group put together following Brexit to support British-German twinning and cultural exchange. She was asking us a lot of questions and it was really heartwarming to talk to her for over an hour.”

Mr Fleming said that he first got involved with the society through a music exchange programme to Leichlingen that was run by Gillotts School in Henley.

He said: “My wife Jenny was a teaching assistant with the music department and would help run the exchange trips to the town with the school’s orchestra and jazz band.”

Mr Fleming whose three children, Henry, Claire and Edward all took part in the programme said he was sad to learn that the school had stopped the trips.

He said: “We all felt that it was a real shame. Our challenge now is to find something that schoolchildren can get involved in.

“State schools have limited funding for things which are not core subjects like music and languages and twinning suffers as a result.

“We as a group are trying our best to keep it going and encourage local people to engage with the cultures and maybe travel over. We try to hold events every month where we show things like foreign language films.”

Trevor Howell, one of the group’s members, who is chairman of AFC Henley, is co-ordinating a football exchange with the town that will take place later this year.

Mr Fleming added: “We want to try our best to make twinning relevant for younger people again.”