A BEAR HOWEVER HARD HE TRIES ...

A headline in the paper suggests that even babies now are becoming addicted to iPads. Where will all this lead?  It makes me feel old.  When I was small electronic devices - other than the radio - were unknown.  Even television didn’t exist for most people and the radio was something big and boxy.   But life seemed liberating.  There was so much to explore, so much to engage the brain.  Now the default position of any age is to turn on something electronic; it’s a way of parking the brain. 

    Yet what fun there is to be had elsewhere.  Yesterday,  the town’s Twinning Association - or what is left of it now after almost more than twenty years - gathered for its AGM.  When the association first started in 1988 I found myself Vice-Chair.  I knew about European grants and I could speak French.  Those grants were the foundation of a healthy bank balance and I still think it was a shame they were scrapped. For a few thousand pounds here and the Commission was able to build an immense amount of cameraderie and understanding between nations and doing so was undoubtedly fun. We haven’t yet had a marriage from our twinning but there have been a great many sporting contests and language exchanges and trade promotions between our two towns. 

    Our twin town - Clisson - lies on the borders of Brittany, a little way inland.  Lying on the river Sevre, it isn’t too far from Nantes and is at the centre of the Muscadet vineyards.  Become a member of the Twinning Association and you will learn a lot about Muscadet, growing the vines, making the wine and drinking the product. The Clissonais will descend again on us in May and as usual their coach will be full of the stuff.  Nice to know the 'Entente Cordiale'  is in good heart.

    Clisson is a pretty town and at its heart sits a medieval castle of the sort that would grace any town in Wales.  It is every bit a proper castle with dungeons and battlements and wells full of skeletons.  Unlike our little castle here in Cowbridge - built incidentally around the same time - which never apparently heard a shot fired in anger.  The Castle at Clisson played a full part in that interminable struggle between England and France known as the 100 years war and later it was pressed into service during the French counter-revolution of the 1790’s which became, in this part of the world, the Wars of the Vendée.  This sad and forlorn contest saw some bloody and cruel fighting ever, with atrocities against civilians committed left, right and centre.  The French Republic won, of course, but not before virtually wiping the population of the Vendée off the map. 

    Clisson changed hands several times during this fighting and the town was wrecked although the medieval roofed market place was spared because each army wanted ready shelter for their troops. Around Clisson the countryside is fairly flat with, at the time, plenty of windmills.  The sails were used by the counter-revolutionary forces as signalling devices. The town was then rebuilt in an Italian style

    All these things and many others I have learned over the years in the course of frequent visits. But it is a question now of how long the Twinning Association will carry on.  The next generation seem to lack interest, preferring to find their fun electronically I suppose.  The old Committee officers have resigned: I gave up the Committee a long time ago when they refused to proceed to twin with a town in Ireland that I had worked hard to secure.  That town, Leixlip, also had a very fine castle and was the place in which Guinness had first been brewed, its recipe devised by a bishop.  It isn’t far from Dublin and I can recommend a visit. 

    But last night I found myself back on the Committee as Treasurer. Another rod for my back in a busy year.  Still it was a fine evening.  Our newest recruit, Elisabeth, played the piano (she played Ave Maria on the grounds that it was by a French composer, Gounod, as well as by Bach) and we sang some songs and told some jokes.   I asked her then to play ‘The Teddy Bear’s Picnic’ whose music was written apparently in 1907,  but whose words didn’t appear for another quarter century. How do you write a song without words?

    Anyway that was my cue to recite ‘A Bear However Hard He Tries.......’ the AA Milne piece whose EH Shepherd illustration was the first literary appearance of Winnie the Pooh - a companion who took the place in my childhood of today's ubiquitous electronic devices.  People seem to think that being able to recite a poem (or remember any sort of script) indicates a prodigious memory.  But it actually isn’t very difficult, being simply repetition. Anyone can learn a script.  But I am content to let them think I have some special skill.  It must be the only one I have.  I shall open a bottle of Muscadet for lunch to celebrate and try to find out what being Treasurer entails.