Forty Years Of French Exchange

Lord Williams’s Lower School is this year celebrating the 40th anniversary of its Year Nine exchange with the Marcel Gambier School in Lisieux in France.
Today, 24 French pupils visiting until January 26, and their teachers, were welcomed by the Mayor of Thame, Nigel Champken-Woods, and two of them got to try on the Mayoral chains.
Cllr Champken-Woods explained the responsibilities of the town council, its committee structure and spoke of the differences between English mayors and French mayors, the latter having a typical annual budget of 15 million Euros, compared with his own council’s of half a million pounds.

The visitors were particularly facinated with the story behind the town’s emblem on the Mayor’s chain, based on the design on an ancient ring, found as part of the so-called ‘Thame Hoard’. This collection of coins and rings is thought to have been the proceedings from a robbery centuries ago and then thrown hurriedly in the River Thame where it was discovered in the twentieth century.
See Link
for more information about the Thame Hoard.

During their stay with Thame host families, the
French pupils have visited London museums, the Roman Baths in Bath and other famous landmarks.