A TOTAL of 140 residents from Devizes' twin towns of Mayenne, in France, and Waiblingen, in Germany, visited Devizes for its twinning weekend.

The towns take it in turns to host a twinning weekend and this year was the turn of Devizes.

The weekend began with a conference on Saturday at Kennet District Council's offices.

The theme was the promotion and extension of twinning links in the three towns through cultural activities.

Jo Beal, arts development officer at Kennet District Council, outlined projects aimed at promoting participation in the arts.

M Chemin, the director of the Bureau of Culture, in Mayenne, met local sculptors Eric Stanford, Deborah MacCabe and Judy Boyt, and visiting the Wine Street, Handel House and Blue Stone art galleries.

Coun Margaret Taylor, the chairman of the conference and Kennet Twinning Committee, presented Herr Klaus Denk with a gift to mark his retirement from Waiblingen Council after 25 years of service.

Sincere apologies were extended by Brian Nash, chairman of the Devizes Twinning Association, for the lack of host families which led to the cancellation of a concert due to feature the Mayenne Youth String Orchestra and the Waiblingen Youth Band.

Many of the families who would usually have hosted young visitors were away for the jubilee weekend.

After the weekend, Devizes Twinning Association sent letters of apology to the Mayenne and Waiblingen delegations for the cancellation of the concert.

Following the conference, Judith Plante Cleall, the headteacher at Pewsey Vale School, planted a tree in memory of Herr Hartmut Hoffman from the Staufer Gymnasium to commemorate his work creating twinning links between the two schools.

On Saturday evening, twinners gathered for a social event at the Corn Exchange, Devizes, and were entertained by the Pete Weston and Jurgen Groner bands.

On Sunday, the Mayor of Devizes, Catherine Brown, was accompanied by the mayor of Waiblingen, Dr Schmidt-Hieber, and the deputy Mayor of Mayenne, Mme Annick Bayer, to a civic service at St John's Church followed by wreath-laying at the war memorial.

During the weekend, visitors from Waiblingen and Mayenne took part in events with the local Budo club, swimming club and rifle club.

Next year's twinning weekend will be held in Waiblingen from May 16 and 19.