Nineteen people from Beccles travelled to Normandy to visit Petit-Couronne on an official visit arranged by the town’s Twinning Association.

Beccles & Bungay Journal: Visitors from Beccles and their hosts on the banks of the Seine.Photo: Clair SuttonVisitors from Beccles and their hosts on the banks of the Seine.Photo: Clair Sutton (Image: Archant)

And this year they took with them one of the owls made by pupils from Albert Pye Primary School which was created for the popular Owlbert Pye trail around Beccles in 2016.

The owls had been spotted by some of the French visitors last year during their stay in the town and they asked if they could use photographs of the owls to create a similar trail in the library Médiathèque Aragon in Petit-Couronne.

Blaze the owl, which was chosen by the school, accompanied Bailey English-Sutton, a Year 5 pupil at Albert Pye, and his mum Clair who were among the eight people travelling to Petit-Couronne for the very first time with the group.

While in Year 4, Bailey had been one of the pupils regularly corresponding with l’ecole Louise Michel in Petit-Couronne. Over the two-day visit, Blaze joined in with all the group’s activities and had such a good time that he stayed on for the rest of the week to carry on meeting visitors at the library. He returned on October 30 with Angela Therain, vice-president of les amis du jumelage in Petit-Couronne.

Blaze brought back with him some crocus bulbs which were planted in the Beccles library gardens around the peace sculpture on Saturday during one of the regular French chat sessions which are held in the library every other Saturday from 10am to 11am.

To find out more about the Beccles Twinning Association, which formed in September 1978, and events planned for 2018 when they will be celebrating their 40th anniversary of twinning with Petit-Couronne, visit their website at www.becclestwinningassoc.onesuffolk.net or email twinning.beccles@gmail.com

The Twinning Association will also be chatting to visitors at their stall at the Beccles Christmas lights switch on event on November 24 when they will be offering French onion soup.

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