Town twinning? We give it a nein

In 1987, the town council had asked residents to express their feelings about the proposal by writing to clerk Denis Sale but a year on, he had received no feedback whatsoever and remarked: “There doesn’t seem to be any interest”.

Mayor Duncan Strachan said that he was disappointed, adding that the town was missing out by not having a twinning arrangement with, for example, a French or German town, and saying that “even a negative response would have better than none at all.”

“I think twinning can be very useful in that it gives towns the chance to exchange ideas” said Coun Strachan. Many smaller places are twinned.”

Enthusiasm clearly picked up around 22 years later as the town was twinned with Erlensee near Frankfurt in 2010.