Bad Laasphe (Pt1) The Golden Book

31 years ago Tamworth and Bad Lassphe (Germany) signed a declaration that we would Twin and build relations between the two areas. This year as Mayor of Tamworth I travelled to Bad Laasphe to sign their Golden book in the spirit of reaffirming this relationship and also attend the handover of some nice fire fighting equipment.
The first thing that struck me about the visit was the genuine welcome we received, and the pleasure they had that we had made the effort. speaking not a word of German made the speeches interesting but not a problem as we had great a translator who had volunteered to assist, not only that but many of the people we met spoke good English too and made us feel very welcome. They still have a real grasp as to the value of twinning and the learning and sharing opportunities that it provides, the weekend really opened my eyes to this and I feel we in Tamworth should do more to raise the profile of the learning that is available through twinning.

So signing the golden book. Every visiting dignitary that Bad Lassphe has is invited to sign the golden book, this is kept in the Rathaus or town hall and serves as live reminder of the recent history of Bad Lassphe. I quickly scanned the book to see what to do and who else had signed it the first page I opened at random was on from 1985 and contained the signature of the greatly missed Sammy Munn. Having taken a moment to inform the councillors of Bad Laasphe of his sad passing it was on with the ceremony which was attended by local councillors and the local press.

So with the book signed by myself, the Mayoress and Tony Goodwin the chief exec of Tamworth we retired to another room where we had time to met and chat to members of the twinning group in Bad Laasphe and councillors of the area including exchanging stories about the Staffordshire Hoard and previous twinning triumphs.

Bring Back Our Gold, Glascote Torc

It's been around 2 years since the Staffordshire Hoard was discovered just down the road and triggered a modern day gold rush with all sorts of local authorities trying to get in on the action or raise funds to acquire the collection.
This year the hoard will be coming to Tamworth castle allowing people to see it for FREE, tickets are available at the new  Tamworth Information Centre and are just for crowd management. This is a fantastic thing for Tamworth and serves a s a great reminder of some of the history we have to offer, remember and celebrate. Tamworth has a colourful history, which other people will know better than I, including evidence of Saxons, a Norman castle, Sir Robert Peel, Thomas Guy and so on, all of which have helped shape Tamworth as a place. For me there is one thing missing from the above list and it is something I spoke about at a cabinet meeting in 2004, I want to see the Glascote Torc brought back home and back to Tamworth.

The Glascote Torc is currently ( I believe) in storage at Birmingham Museum, (click this link). The fight to bring it back to Tamworth has gone on before and has been raised in the local press a number of times, it was actually a relative of Tamworth's Mayor Lee Bates who found the Torc which became treasure trove and went to Birmingham.

So why do I want it back now? Well the Staffordshire Hoard will be coming to Tamworth this August with an amount of security around it and the argument has always been we don't have anywhere secure to display it (it has been said for at least 5 years now that this is no longer the case) so why not put the two together and let the people of Tamworth see the Glascote Torc in Tamworth this August. It's our history let's celebrate it together in it's rightful home and along side the Staffordshire Hoard.

So please re post this and lets start a campaign to get our Torc back.