I first travelled to the beautiful German city of Hameln in 1998, representing Nottingham as Robin Hood during their fabulous annual Pied Piper festival. Michael Boyer (the Piper) and I hit it off straight away, and shortly afterwards I had the pleasure of showing him around Nottingham during our Robin Hood Pageant - and during our meetings we began to form an idea of the two towns (and heroes) working together.

So when Switzerland's William Tell and I successfully appeared with Michael at last year's special Pied Piper Festival in Hameln, we all agreed to do something positive - all three of us are extremely proud of our respective cities, firmly believing that the world-famous legendary characters we portray are unique branding, publicity, marketing and tourism opportunities for our cities (who hasn't heard of Robin, the Piper or William Tell?), with enormous existing public goodwill. 

To make best use of this enthusiasm we realised that we and our cities should mutually co-operate to build on these legends and characters, so we initially propose to travel to the spot where William Tell and his men signed their famous pact to uphold justice and freedom, and there to sign another pledging all three of us, representing our cities to do the same thing - thus creating an international 'Legion of Legends'!

The Legion, initially comprising the three of us and our cities councils (later to be joined by others), could then use the immense press and public interest generated to mutually promote each other, publicise festivals, events and tourism and make the best use of the kind of legendary asset that money just can't buy, and other cities can only dream of! Our first meeting is being planned right now, and watch this space (and the press) for more details soon!  

For more details email me or Michael or Herr Harald Wanger of Hameln Tourism.