Henri and René Guerra: How Parisian twins charmed a Powys town

Henri (left) and René (right) "seem to have delighted in their identical appearance", says Catrin Meredith

The story of Parisian twins who charmed a mid Wales town has been uncovered by a woman researching her family tree.

Catrin Meredith became fascinated with Henri and René Guerra while recording her father's memories of his life in Llanidloes, Powys.

Between 1915 and 1955, the identical twins ran a camp for schoolboys, marshalled the local army cadets, set up sports leagues and oversaw the stay of 700 World War II evacuees in the area.

Now, historian Mrs Meredith is appealing for more information about the Guerra twins, before their lives fall out of living memory.

"Although I now live in Malvern, my father comes from Llanidloes, and I've tried to get down some of his earliest memories," she said.

"Coincidentally I was speaking to a colleague whose Birmingham school is trying to raise money to restore a dilapidated cottage called Bryntail near Llanidloes, which took boys from their urban surroundings and gave them a taste of the country life for a few weeks each year.

"It soon became clear that the French twins were the ones who had first begun this tradition."

Llanidloes evacuees' Christmas party at the Boys' Club, Henri Guerra far right, in 1939

Who were the Guerra twins?

Mrs Meredith's research revealed Henri and René arrived in Britain in 1902.

Their father, Columbian left-wing journalist Paul Guerra, met the twins' mother Emma Greenwood when she was the chaperone to Little Women author Louisa May Alcott on her grand tour of Europe.

They were born in 1877 at an address on Avenue de Wagram in the 17th arrondissement, "a very interesting area politically," she said.

"I think this upbringing informed the sense of fair play and selflessness which characterised the rest of their lives in Wales."

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Clearly gifted students, Henri studied at Harvard in Massachusetts and René at the Sorbonne in Paris, before becoming masters at the Central Grammar School in Birmingham and Bristol Grammar School respectively.

The pair helped establish hockey as a global sport, playing against each other in the first ever recorded internationals of the 1890s, Henri on the English side and René for the French.

Birmingham schoolboys with Henri Guerra at Bryntail camp in 1924

Their connection with mid Wales began in 1915, when Henri unearthed the former lead-mine's foreman cottage of Bryntail as a suitable location for a summer camp for his students.

Although the predominantly Welsh-speaking farming community were not initially impressed by the influx of English grammar school boys.

"They were two totally different worlds, so probably it's not surprising that there was suspicion at first," said Mrs Meredith.

"But Henri made his boys show respect by standing in the mud to one side of the track to allow the locals to go into chapel first, as well as setting up baseball and rugby competitions with farm teams in the area, and an annual bridge tournament organised by a Mr Grahame.

"Before long they were expected as part of the summer calendar."

Mrs Meredith discovered by the 1920s, so totally were the Birmingham schoolboys accepted that local farmers were aiding in maintaining the Bryntail camp, and even supplying fresh food and barrels of beer.

Henri retired through ill health in 1927, when he took over a burnt-out woollen mill to set up a permanent boys' club for his adopted home.

It is from this point that Mrs Meredith's own father remembers the impact of the twins on their town.

"My dad recalls there being boxing, billiards, table tennis, a gymnasium and meeting rooms, there'd been nothing like it before in the area," she said.

By 1936 René had also retired, and joined his twin in Llanidloes.

During World War II they took in about 700 refugees from the continent , earning the Palmes d'Or from the Belgian king for this work.

Yet despite all their serious endeavours, the twins do not appear to have been averse to the odd jape or two.

"Henri and René seem to have delighted in their identical appearance: beards, glasses, berets, even down to driving identical Citroens," said Mrs Meredith.

"Henri's car was reputedly only able to make it up the track to Bryntail in reverse, whilst an item in the Bristol Grammar School Chronicle magazine describes René's as: 'His 'rather antique Citroen' in which 'he delighted to drive his friends to Weston and elsewhere, with a driving technique surely learned from Parisian taximen'."

Mrs Meredith's father also recalled the pair would play pranks on the barber, one going in for a haircut, only to be replaced by the other with hair several inches longer a half hour later.

The twins lived in Llanidloes until their deaths in 1955.

When René died, Henri took over his role as curator of Llanidloes Museum, but just five weeks later he too had died.

Friends said they just weren't able to live without one another.

They are both buried in the town's cemetery.

In 2015 former campers reunited at Bryntail cottage

To this day Bryntail belongs to Tile Cross Academy, the successor of Birmingham Central Grammar School.

The academy runs annual trips for former students who wish to help restore the site, and are fund-raising to return it once again to the sort of summer camp that the Guerra twins first envisaged over a century ago.