Rutland County Council chairman visits...Rutland

Andrew Brown, the chairman of Rutland County Council, has visited Rutland, Vermont

Most people would assume the tiny county of Rutland might not have too much in common with the part of New England which shares its name.

But Andrew Brown, chairman of Rutland County Council, says there are a number of surprising similarities between the place he represents as a politician and Rutland in Vermont.

Brown recently returned from a self-funded visit to the Rutland's US namesake where he met the local mayor, chief of police and took part in a Loyalty Day parade in the pouring rain.

And he said he was given a truly warm welcome by his North American counterparts, who put in place a packed itinerary to allow him to see as much of the place as possible.

Brown was invited to take part in Rutland's annual Loyalty Day parade during his visit to Vermont

He said: "It was amazing. They treated us very well.

"They have Rutland County, Rutland Town and a Rutland City, where there are about 16,000 in the city and 61,000 in the county, so it's also quite sparsely populated.

"And they have a railway that runs rights through the main city - a bit like Oakham."

Brown added a visit to Rutland in Vermont was on his wish list since he was elected chairman of Rutland County Council.

"Because I get elected yearly and am in my second term, I wanted to go in case I don't get another chance, so I sent an email, they got back to me and we had a few meetings online to arrange my visit," he said.

'Minibus with wings'

Rutland in Vermont sits about 100 miles (160.9km) south of the border with Canada and is thought to have been named after John Manners, the third Duke of Rutland.

And it is so remote that Brown, who was travelling with his wife and son, had to catch a connecting flight to get to their destination.

"We flew into Boston from the UK and had to get a connecting flight to Rutland, but it was on a really small aircraft with nine seats," Brown said. "It was like a minibus with wings!

"And it turned out it was overweight with the number of people travelling on it, so my wife and son elected to get off and travel there by car.

"I was left on the plane on my own to make sure I got there on time - they had a full itinerary worked out for me in Rutland.

"The noise of the plane was quite loud and so I couldn't talk to anyone and because we were flying through cloud, I couldn't see anything either - and then my wife and son arrived in Rutland only an hour later than I did."

Brown had lunch with the chief of police as he worked through a packed itinerary which was specially planned for his trip

A proclamation was read out to herald Brown's arrival in Vermont and he also took part in the Loyalty Day parade, to honour all past and present service personnel and included representative of the police and firefighters as well as marching bands.

"The police over there work really differently," Brown said. "There's the state police, the township police and the sheriff, I struggled a bit to work out who does what."

He also had lunch with the police chief and addressed the board of aldermen at a meeting, where he handed over a Rutland flag.

Brown was also interviewed for television and even performed his own stand-up routine at an evening of singing and entertainment to round off his visit.

He said: "I thought the interview would only go out to a few people, but it went out on state TV and when I got back to the hotel, a bloke in the bar said to me 'aren't you that guy from Rutland in England who I saw on the TV?'

"It was great fun and part of the reason for me wanting to go is that I wanted to meet and get to know real American people and I did that - and they were great, and really down to earth."

Brown arranged his visit with Mike Doenges, Mayor of Rutland City in Vermont, who told the BBC he would like to visit Rutland in the UK himself some day.

He added: "We were very excited to have Andrew and his family visit us here in Rutland Vermont!

"When Andrew first contacted us, I was surprised and impressed that he wanted to take his personal vacation to the United States and come and visit us here in Rutland City.

"It was an absolute pleasure to share time showing Andrew and his family around our community and discussing the strong similarities and slight differences between our two 'Rutlands'.

"I look forward to making the visit to Rutland County UK myself someday in the future, to visit and see our namesake for myself."