Celebrations continue fifty years on ...

On 25 June 1976, it was reported that a ‘triangular area just inside the gates of Bideford’s Victoria Park is to be named Landivisiau Garden. Flowers are to be planted in a tricolour display as part of a tribute to visitors from the French town who will be coming to Bideford on regatta day for the official signing of the twinning charter between the two towns.

A full celebration programme is planned. A dinner-dance attended …

“Tomorrow’s signing of the official twinning charter by the Mayor of Bideford, Mr Clifford Coates and his opposite number in Landivisiau, Monsieur Yves Queguiner, will complete the last bridge between towns and villages on Torridgeside and places in France. With the encouragement of Bideford Chamber of Commerce and its president, Mr Jeremy Ferguson, Bideford has gone to considerable lengths to make this a highlight in the town’s calendar. And Landivisiau attaches so much importance to it that around 170 of its people will accompany their Mayor and Mayoress. From 2pm until the signing ceremony the crowd in Jubilee Square will be entertained by Bideford Town Band and by artistes from Brittany as well as from Devon.

After the signing the company will move to Victoria Park when the Mayor of Landivisiau will officially open the garden to be named after Bideford’s twin. At 630pm in the Sports Ground, Bideford FC will meet Stade Landivisien and visitors will then be introduced to a typical Devon custom – a lamb roast. Afterwards there will be dancing to the Soloheim Mungaash Jazz Band. Mr Ferguson said that he saw the twinning as an enormous opportunity …

Reported 10 September 1976 – “As the echoes of the National Anthem and La Marseillaise died away in Jubilee Square a large crowd watched as Bideford and the Brittany town of Landivisiau officially became ‘twins.’ After expressing their hopes for a united and brotherly Europe in a world of peace the Mayors signed a twinning charter to bring to a climax a weekend of special events in honour of the French visitors and more than 18 months of work by the respective twinning committees. The signed charter, in a presentation casket, was handed to the French Mayor for retention by Mr Coates.

And there was a German link …

Gazette 3 June 1977

“The formalities of town twinning between Bideford and Landivisiau in Brittany were completed last weekend when a party of 87 Bidefordians, representative of all ages, visited the French town for a reciprocal ceremony to the charter-signing in Bideford last September.

The Bideford party was led by the Mayor, Mr Clifford Coates, who on behalf of the Town Council presented the Mayor of Landivisiau Monsieur Y Queguiner, with a framed photograph of Bideford Long Bridge and Quay and a pipe and pipestand made of centuries-old oak from Bideford bridge.

On behalf of Bideford Twinning Association, Mr Stan Short presented a stained glass panel bearing the Arms of the two towns.

In addition to the twinning charter bearing the Coats of Arms of the two towns and signed by the two Mayors, others gifts to Bideford were a hand-carved slab of local slate also bearing the two Arms and the date, and a plaque depicting the Arms of Bad – Sooden – Allendorf, Landivisiau’s German twin town, whose Mayor also attended the ceremony.

The Mayor of Bideford also unveiled a symbol of the twinning, an inscribed slab of local slate, bearing the Arms of the two towns and the inscription “Bideford – Landivisiau, Twin Towns,” which marks the area of the new bus station now officially designation “Bideford Square.”

In Landivisiau 'buses now go from Bideford Square

 Craftsmen are urged to exhibit

An article dated 15 July 1977 states “although they had achieved in just over two years what the Mayor of Landivisiau had predicted would need four or five years’ work there was still a great deal to be done if twinning between the two towns was really to involve the whole community, coordinator Mr Nigel Melville told an open meeting of the Bideford-Landivisiau Twinning Committee. He praised the work of the steering committee, set up in 1975, and also Bideford Town Council. But they must now build on these foundations, stressed Mr Melville. School exchanges and annual outings were good starting points, but he hoped that in time local firms might send employees abroad to study methods in France. Also that Bideford people …

Landivisiau is in an administrative division of Brittany in north-western France, and it is twinned with Bideford since 1976. The Bideford Twinning Association arranges yearly exchange visits, and the connection is commemorated with Landivisiau Walk, a French pillar box and town signposts.