Tenbury Wells French Twinning Association has exciting plans ahead of its 40th anniversary trip to France next summer.

On Friday November 22, it will host a "Beaujolais Nouveau" evening at St Michael's village hall, with three-course French-themed meal prepared by members, and a quiz.

Then on Saturday March 15, another murder mystery evening is planned, following the success of a similar event in March this year which was set in a French vineyard.

These mark the run-up to the planned trip to Pont-du-Casse near Agen in southwest France to mark the 40th year of the twinning between the two towns.

A new twinning committee on the French side has invited the Tenbury group, likely to number between 30 and 40, to celebrate the event on the weekend of August 16-17.

This will coincide with the French town's vast open-air "marché gourmand" or gourmet market,which Tenbury visitors enjoyed during their last visit to the town in 2019.

Exchanges between the two towns were halted for some time due to the Covid pandemic, but restarted in August last year when a group of around 30 Cassipontins, as the French townspeople are known, enjoyed the Tenbury Agricultural Show, a trip to Powis Castle and a choral mini-concert at St Michael’s church.

In 1985 a "twinning oath" was signed by the mayors of the two towns in Pont-du-Casse during the first official visit from Tenbury Wells, followed by the naming of a street, the "rue de Tenbury Wells", in Pont-du-Casse.

Later that same year a Pont-du-Casse delegation, numbering 55, paid its first visit to Tenbury.