As soon as the Twinning Associations in Monmouth’s twin towns – Waldbronn in Germany and Carbonne in France – saw the news of the devastating flooding on November 15, they were in touch with their opposite numbers in Monmouth to see how they could help writes Jane Harvey. As 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of Monmouth’s twinning with Carbonne and 2026 will be the 40th anniversary of the Waldbronn link, there are many people in both Waldbronn and Carbonne who know Monmouth well and have friends here.

Individual twinning association members in Carbonne have already donated to the Bridges appeal and the Carbonne Twinning Association is donating to the Osbaston Church in Wales school appeal. Osbaston School has been working with l’éole élémentaire Henri Chanfreau in Carbonne since 2018 in a “Posters, Penfriends and Friendship” project.

To support their language learning, pupils exchange cards and posters, make new friends and find out more about school and home life in France. In September, during the 50th anniversary celebrations in Carbonne, twinning member Tess Deighton visited the school.

Tess told us “I had a lovely morning at the school in Carbonne with teachers Florence and Isabelle. I delivered the letters from Osbaston school, and the pupils were over the moon - they have started writing replies already and asked hundreds of questions and I had lots of drawings to bring back for the pupils in Osbaston!” An exciting future project is the Family-to-Family links scheme. Please contact [email protected] for more information.

Membership of both associations is open to everyone in Monmouth and the surrounding area, and there is no need to be able to speak French or German, and membership is free for the first year. To find out more and to join, visit www.monmouthcarbonne.org and www.monmouthwaldbronn.org.