A PENZANCE woman making her first trip outside Europe will strengthen the ties between west Cornwall and a mining area in the heart of Australia.
Margaret Freeman, a town councillor and chairman of Penzance's twinning association with Bendigo, is currently spending ten days in the Victorian mining town, and told The Cornishman before she flew from Heathrow that she wanted to 'fly the flag' for West Cornwall down under.
Invited by members of the Bendigo end of the twinning association, Mrs Freeman is undergoing a non-stop schedule of events and visits.
Ceremony
One highlight will definitely be a civic ceremony when she will present 'Friendship', a Newlyn Copper boat designed and created by the acclaimed craftsman Michael Johnson.
"It is a gift to Bendigo from the people of Penzance and St Just," she said.
"It symbolises all those hugely brave voyages that were made by Cornish miners who sought a better life in Australia in the 19th century."
Mrs Freeman is also taking out to Bendigo a small poppy posy, donated by the local RBL, which she will lay at the ANZAC Day commemorations which take place while she is there.
And she is particularly looking forward to visiting Violet Street School which has forged close links with St Mary's C of E School in Penzance.
The internet has enabled many of the children to become pen friends over the past two or three years and other schools in the Bendigo area are keen to instigate similar contacts with West Cornwall.
Mrs Freeman said she was looking forward to swapping knowledge and experiences about how each community lives but also hoped that there might be more material benefits for West Cornwall.
"Bendigo has a population of around 90,000 people and it is estimated that about a third of them are directly descended from Cornish stock," she added.
"It would be nice to think that my visit would encourage a few more Australians to come over here and look up their roots."
article copyright THE CORNISHMAN