Driving through the blink-and-you-miss-it village of Whitwell, population 41, I wonder if I read the street sign correctly. ‘Twinned with Paris’, it announces proudly. Whitwell might have a handful of pretty, stone cottages, possibly more ducks than residents and an appealing-looking pub called The Noel, but Paris? Really?
It’s not until we sit down to lunch later at the Olive Branch at Clipsham that the co-owner Ben Jones throws some light on it.
“One night some of the locals in the pub decided it was a good idea,” he chuckles. “It’s pretty tongue in cheek.”
It was apparently in 1980 that pub regulars decided to write to the then mayor of Paris, a certain Jacques Chirac, proposing the ambitious twinning. They added that if they didn’t receive a response, they would assume that Paris had accepted the offer. When no RSVP was received, a farcical ceremony was held, and the sign has been there ever since.
It’s just one of the quirky
