Twinning'—Broken Hill, Zambia, and Harrow on the Hill, England
| Date | 01 April 1966 |
| Published date | 01 April 1966 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1966.tb00263.x |
| Author | David Pritchard |
'Twinning'-Broken
Hill, Zambia,
and Harrow on the Hill, England
By
DAVID
PRITCHARD
Mr. Pritchard is the
Town
Clerk
of
Harrow.
I
HAVE
read with great interest the Editor's comments on town 'twinning'
arrangements in Editor's Notes contained in your issue
of
January, 1965.
Your readers may be interested to know that the London Borough of
Harrow has 'twinning' arrangements 'in ties
of
friendship' with the Munici-
pality
of
Broken Hill, in the Republic
of
Zambia.
The
unique feature
of
this
particular town 'twinning' is that it sprang out
of
tragedy and human suffering.
The
first contact occurred in October, 1958, when the then Mayor
of
Harrow (Alderman Mrs. I. M. Potts, M.B.E.) received the Deputy Mayoress
of
Broken Hill (Mrs. E. G. Hayes) and her son who were on holiday in the
United Kingdom.
They
presented the Mayor with a letter from the Mayor
of
Broken Hill (Councillor A. K. Kemp) which extended to the Harrow
Council greetings and good wishes from Broken Hill.
The
letter referred to
the fact that the Deputy Mayor
of
Broken
Hill
(Councillor E. G. Hayes) who
was born in Harrow, and extremely proud
of
the fact, was Joint Editor
of
the
Broken Hill Observer, the first issue
of
which was that of rst August, 1958.
This
was the first time in its history that Broken Hill had a local newspaper
and we, in Harrow, did not overlook the fact that it bore a similar name to
that
of
along-established Harrow newspaper, the
Harrow
Observer.
The
Mayor
of
Harrow replied reciprocating the greetings from the Mayor
of
Broken Hill.
The
first civic social-contact developed into something much deeper
strengthened by a tragic occurrence in 1961. In November
of
that year, the
brother
of
the then Mayor
of
Broken
Hill
(Councillor Jack Hopwood) was
killed in a motor accident, his wife injured and their school-girl daughter,
Frances, gravely paralysed. Indeed, Frances's injuries were so serious that
they necessitated her being flown immediately to England, in the care
of
a
doctor, for the highly skilled attention
of
the National Orthopaedic Hospital
at Stanmore in the Borough
of
Harrow.
The
Town
Clerk
of
Broken Hill (Mr.
David Brooks, a former
Town
Clerk
of
Yorkshire's Richmond), wrote to me
in the hope that Icould arrange for someone to visit Frances, to relieve the
loneliness of a young girl
of
17 lying prostrate 6,000 miles from home. Mr.
Brooks was assured that Frances would not lack kindness in Harrow; and
sure enough, the then Mayor
of
Harrow (Alderman W. O. Allen, O.B.E.,
J.P.) and the Mayoress frequently visited Frances in hospital, as did my staff,
my wife and myself.
The
Mayoress
of
the two towns exchanged Christmas greetings and in
thanking the Mayor and Mayoress
of
Harrow for their visits to Frances, the
Mayor
of
Broken Hill said that Frances's mother and sister had been very
affected by the kindness shown; and that Harrow, which had previously only
been a name had now become for them a place
of
love, sympathy and under-
standing.
128
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