成人快手

For some it is a simple friendly exchange between school children and families from opposite sides of the English Channel, for other it's multi-million euro regeneration projects and tourism partnerships. Cross-Channel twins are not all identical.

Sandgate / Sangatte

Take Sandgate for example, and its twin town Sangatte, just over 20 miles away from eachother across the English Channel. They may sound like the ultimate Tweedledum and Tweedledee of the twinning world but these two towns, unlike Lewis Caroll's argumentative contrarians, get along famously.

The twinning was the idea of Marie-Christine Livermore, local councilor of Sangatte:

"I thought it was impossible to have two towns with such close names not twinned"

"I was fed up hearing the French saying all sorts of nasty things about the English, that the food was bad and that the pubs were always shut and that the English weren't nice because they didn't speak French"

Sandgate and Sangatte are perhaps the closest twin towns in the world - not just in spelling - but also in distance. On a clear day, they can even see each other or as Marie Christine jokes, wave to each other.

This proximity means that the twinning involves more than just an annual pilgrimage, but a regular exchange between schools, musicians and families - often going and coming back in the same day.

Graham Pierce from Deal

Deal / St. Omer

Deal's bond with St. Omer, situated about half an hour inland from Calais, is no less strong. There are regular reciprocal visits between families and hockey teams, and once a year, usually on Bastille Day, a large group of the Deal twinning society head off to St. Omer for what can only be described as a 'damn good lunch'.

The link was first established in 1973 when a French teacher living in St. Omer decided to start an exchange of friends with his father's town of origin - Deal. Graham Pierce is the Chairman of the Deal - St. Omer Society:

"We've made great friends with them, I think it's given us an understanding of how other countries lead their lives, which you wouldn't get just by visiting the country"

Medway Towns / Valenciennes

Last year Chatham and Valenciennes celebrated 50 years of successful twinning, one of the oldest partnerships of it's kind in Europe. Latterly, links have extended to include all of the Medway Towns.

French food at the Kent County Show

Far beyond the casual realationships described above, Medway and Valenciennes听 attract millions of euros in EU cash to fund joint initiatives. The funding by Interreg, the institution set up to encourage cross-border projects, has already enabled a number of exchanges between young underprivileged people from both regions and seen them working on joint projects such as putting on a play and creating a website.

Genevieve Adam is in charge of International Relations for the town of Valenciennes:

"I think we had a common link at the beginning. Valenciennes and Chatham were both touched by unemployment. In Chatham the docks closed and in Valenciennes our iron plants were closed as well. here we lost about 45,000 jobs - so we have a common history together."

Other joint projects include school kids from Valenciennes heading over to Rochester as part of their Dickens studies. Belive it or not, there are also links between lace makers in both areas and Rochester pilots club regularly exchanges air space with their counterparts in France.