OTD 1980: Whitwell Twinned with Paris

ATV Today reporter John Mitchell paid a visit to the village of Whitwell in Rutland which had become ‘twinned with Paris.’

Mitchell describes the similarities with a piece to camera and interviews Sam Healey, the ‘mayor’ of Whitwell and to a man who is pretending to the mayor of Paris. A parade through the village and a celebration in a tent involving morris and can-can dancers.

It transpired that the village became ‘unofficially twinned with Paris’ after locals from the Noel Arms wrote to the mayor of Paris and on not receiving a reply from French officials decided to announce the twinning anyway.