Big in Backnang

Congratulations Chelmsford! You did yourself proud at this year’s Swabian Street Party in your twin town of Backnang. The four-day festival which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors, has itself sadly drawn to a close, but the friendships forged and the collaborations ignited will reverberate around our cities for years to come.

Leading the official delegation, Chelmsford mayor Janette Potter gave an address at our jolly, red-and-white, cross-timbered town hall in which she expressed her pleasure at returning for the fourth time to Backnang and stressed the work and long-term commitment involved in generating truly fruitful twinning partnerships -- past, present and future.  

As an example of promising new ventures in twinning, Mrs. Potter cited Jennifer Flint of Original Creative Work and artist Tamara Eden, representatives of Chelmsford’s flourishing visual art’s community, who traveled to the festival on a recognizance and networking mission. Backnang’s Lord Mayor Maximilian Friedrich was especially honored to receive as an official gift one of Ms. Flint’s original, black-and-white prints depicting a map of Chelmsford landmarks.

             The climax of the twin-city collaboration, however, was indisputably Saturday night’s performance of 1980’s new wave and new romantic hits by Electronique, a Chelmsford-based band led by keyboardist Andy Smith with vocalists Jules Everest and Paul Jenkins, along with guitarist Tom Smith and bass player Steve Lovett. For this special night, the musicians joined forces with guest drummer David Whitehead, himself chairman of the Backnang-Chelmsford Partnerschaftsverein, and with prize-winning local singer Cathleen Wagner, to put on an emotional and energetic show. As the skies cleared only minutes before the band went on stage, an eager crowd assembled, frothy mugs of beer in hand, for an ecstatic, two-hour wander down memory lane which left residents of both cities feeling like they had the world at their feet.