Last updated 12:04, Saturday, 22 March 2008

WHEN you visit Selm, one of the first things you’ll see is the sign ‘Selm - twin town of Workington’ and the English flag hanging at the roundabout in the town centre.

For most of the people in Selm that’s all the twinning means.

Is twinning just something that sounds good or gives any kind of profit to a town? It gives a profit, but not a financial one.

A lot of people in Selm try to make exchanges between the two countries possible. They plan trips, parties, and show visitors typical events like the German Christmas markets.

The twinning arrangement was created after the Second World War to try and build a united Europe again.

“We’ve got to understand each other and to overcome the barriers in our own mind,” said Margaret Jones, vice-chairman of the twinning association in Workington.

Twinning is about hospitality and it’s about culture.

The twinning certificate between Selm and Workington was signed in 1994. There are twinning associations in both towns, which have been given the task of developing and maintaining the twinning links.

They include about 80 members and several unregistered members, who participate on trips or other events.

“It’s a people thing,” Margaret Jones said, while showing me a lot of cheerful pictures of her experiences in Germany.

She and her husband Richard have been involved in the twinning association from the beginning in 1994.

hey have been to Germany more than 20 times. “Once you go, you want to go back!” they said. “The people over in Selm are wonderful, we always have a lot of fun together” “The majority of us are not able to speak German, but any of us learned one of the most important sentences right in the beginning: vier bier, bitte!”.“Every time I went there I came back full of new experiences,” twinning member Barbara Charnley said.The twinning association organises visits to host families in Selm, or conversely; for people of all ages, backgrounds, ethnicity and beliefs.“The joy of this system is that we get to see inside the life of people in foreign countries and develop really close friendships,” Margaret Jones said.

For more information, email Workington.Twinning@googlemail.com