THIS year is the 25th anniversary of Bridgwater's special twinning relationship with the Czech Republic.

In June 1992, Bridgwater was the first British town to twin with a Czech town, in this case Uherske Hradiste, following the Velvet Revolution, when the Czechs and Slovaks left the Soviet Bloc.

Due to the town's history with the Czech Republic Cllr Brian Smedley was recently invited to Ightfield in Shropshire to a special event to commemorate two of the country's Second World War heroes.

A new monument was unveiled to honour Czech soldiers Jan Kubis and Josef Gabcik, who were dropped in the occupied Czechoslovakia and assassinated Hitler's third in command, Reinhard Heydrich - the butcher of Prague and the man who devised the 'Final Solution'.

Along with five Czech comrades the pair subsequently fought to the death in a crypt in Prague on June 18, 1942, in a major act of resistance which still lives today in the memory of their compatriots.

Cllr Brian Smedley said: "This year is the 25th anniversary of the Bridgwater Czechoslovakia twinning and so I was very pleased to have been invited to Ightfield to represent the Bridgwater and the link.

"Only in February of this year I’d taken a group of Bridgwater College students to Prague and we’d not only visited the Crypt on Resslova, the concentration camp at Terezin and the village of Lidice.

"We also re-enacted the events of Gabcik and Kubis’s ambush on the actual site, which is now a rather difficult bend on a Prague hillside – which was why it was originally chosen, because Heydrich’s car would have to slow down."

In September, Bridgwater and Uherske Hradiste musicians will be heading to the Moravian Wine Festival, and then in November, the mayor and Czech dignitaries will be visiting Bridgwater for the carnival.

Cllr Smedley said: "Throughout all the years of this friendship link we’ve kept the original ideals in the forefront of what we believe– that nations should work together for peace, that friendships across national boundaries can break down those barriers of hate and mistrust that cause wars and that wherever Fascism rears its head you don’t ignore it, you fight it."