CORRESPONDENT Mr S. C. Lord (Oct 29) suggests that the local authority should break its twinning links with French towns because of the beef crisis.

I should like to point out that twinning is a bit like a marriage where, hopefully, you do not rush to the divorce courts just because you have a disagreement! In any case our twinning links are based on individual friendships and links with various groups of similar interests in Germany and France which have prospered for many years - we have just celebrated 40 years of twinning with Angouleme - and it would be foolish to destroy these for the sake of a political argument.

RONALD SCHWARZ,

secretary/publicity officer,

Bury Metro Community

Twinning Association.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.