WHO KNEW I’D GET A SERIOUS REPLY ABOUT TWINNING?

THE Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was named the most popular British Studio Album in history in the UK by the Official Charts Company.

Fifty-one years old and still a classic, even though Joe Cocker made With A Little Help From My Friends totally his own.

Second was Adele’s 2011 album 21 and third was Oasis with (What’s The Story) Morning Glory from 1995, which is throbbing on my MP3 player as I write.

So the influence of the Beatles take two of the top three places. As a committed Beatles fan, I’ve always viewed Oasis as their natural successors.

What would be your top three album choices? WROTE a rather flippant piece about how we should make more effort when twinning our towns and districts with other places around the world.

For instance, Kirklees is twinned with Kostanai in Kazakhstan, a town of which most local people have never heard.

Better, I suggested, to link with samename places or ones with an amusing connection such as Dull, a village in Scotland, that twinned with Boring in Oregan, America.

John Appleyard of Liversedge came up with a more serious suggestion to twin the Spen Valley with Brussels.

“Charlotte and Emily Bronte, who had connections with our area, both worked in Brussels, and Charlotte’s novel Villete was based on her time there.

During the First World War, the Spen Valley became home to many Belgian refugees. Recently the late Jo Cox, former Member of Parliament for Batley and Spen, was honoured in Brussels. Jo was raised in Heckmondwike, an integral part of the Spen Valley. I would urge the powers that be to consider this twinning.”