Sedbergh’s Dave Collier, Communications Officer of the North West Twinning Federation, believes there are many benefits to forging international links

International links are a great social leveller.

Many years ago I worked in the European Space Operations Centre in Germany, where we had a saying that went like this: The British wish they could speak German, Germans try very hard to speak English, the Dutch and Danes speak everyone's language, and the French speak French.

But that was then. Vastly more people speak some English in France now, and British people have gone a stage beyond wishing - they are getting on with it and learning, or many of them are.

When George Dawson Handley retired as head teacher of a school in Hull he returned to Sedbergh, to the house where he was born. George had a love of everything Italian, or nearly everything – not the seafood, but most things – and he began to share this passion with others through teaching the Italian language at adult education classes.

In the 16 years of his classes, until he was forced by deteriorating health to finish in 2013, so many people learned some Italian with George in Sedbergh, Kendal and Kirkby Lonsdale that he lost count of the number. All he knew was that it was a lot.

Once a year George took a party of adults to Italy where, in addition to visiting places of historic interest with an expert guide and sampling some of Italy's great variety of regional food, there were morning language classes to help everyone with a little more depth of understanding.

These trips were always oversubscribed. George had to limit the numbers to about 25, the size of group he could realistically manage. Fortunately both the language classes and the Italian trips are continuing, with others leading them.

So many people learning Italian and something of another land. And not of a pattern - people of all ages and types and backgrounds. A social levelling.

Ex-headteacher of Settlebeck School Dave Smith organises visits to Sedbergh's twin town, Zre?e in Slovenia. These trips are levellers too.

Dave and his team have taken groups of teenage girls and boys from a range of backgrounds, some with special needs, including a boy in a wheelchair and several young people on the autism spectrum.

The trips usually take place in February when, in addition to visiting some of Slovenia's historic monuments and meeting others of their own age, the young people get a chance to do something they have little opportunity for in South Lakeland - to ski.

International links are inclusive and socially cohesive.

Sedbergh, in particular, was not so long ago quite stratified. There was Sedbergh School on the one hand, and local people, farmers and those who worked on support services for the school on the other.

Another layer began to be introduced in recent decades with off-comers - people like me who came to the area with a specific purpose and never quite got round to leaving.

Getting these different layers to intermingle freely has been the desire of many. The question, though, has been ‘how?’ Yet it does seem that if something international is involved, the supposed barriers almost always disappear. A great leveller.

Many towns in North West England have twinning arrangements with towns overseas, including five towns in South Lakeland: Coniston, Kendal, Sedbergh, Ulverston and Windermere.

These five are all members of the North West Twinning Federation, which acts as an information-exchange for ideas and activities on interacting with different cultures and languages.

The good people of North West England are no longer just wishing, they're doing!

You can see something of the extent of international links that towns in the North West enjoy from the interactive map on the Federation's website: www.nwtwintowns.eu