SALTS SPA TWINS TOUR

One game in the final 16 of Euro2016 now gone and my prediction is jiggered as extra time has been played and Switzerland are out on penalties. The good news is that the officials are English and they had a good game.

England's base has been at Chantilly, which is twinned with an English Georgian Spa, Epsom where the salts come from. My mum swore by Epsom Salts, they were the answer to everything.

Recognised by the WHO Model List of Essential medicines MgSO4.7H20 is found emerging from a bitter saline spring at Epsom on the North Downs, where the porous Chalk strata meets impermeable clay, hence the spring and the settlement.

The salts are used in bath salts, muscle repairs, beauty treatment and removing splinters as well as in gardening. Here it is.....no sniffing!

Epsom, more famous for its racecourse, set on the wonderful chalky turf, benefitted from its fame as a spa and its Assembly rooms (now a pub) was where the punters came to take the medicine. The web tells me that Epsom's "clustered bulk" is between 35-70 metres above sea level. I had never heard of that phrase before but it means the centre of the "nucleated settlement"! Any the wiser?
Petula Clark was born there....that's better! No little "green men" around though.

Epsom is twinned with Chantilly (pop 11,000), so now you know where I am taking this. The two have race horses in common, where chevals enjoy the springy well drained turf. The town is set in the Paris Basin, well known for its chalk escarpments, but it is the local ferruginous water that has been tapped by the locals and bottled, thus making Chantilly a spa!
The painting "The Derby at Epsom" 1821 was paintd by a Frenchman Theodore Gericault-coincidence? Was he born in Chantilly? Too much to ask.

BUT Alfred Aston, 1912-2003, a French footballer in the 1934 and 1938 World Cup, was born there. He had an English father and French mum. More links. It's an omen.

Now, if you have a look at this wonderful website of Epsom and Ewell FC, a club that is on the Surrey/South-east non-league circuit, you will find out about  their recent "tour" to Chantilly and the fun they had with Roy and his boys. Good timing tour organiser, a coup. The club of course are known as the SALTS.
http://www.eefconline.co.uk/

I think their website is one of the best! Lots of fun and plenty of records, so well done E&EFC, a club I had the honour of visiting with Horsham and Lewes and I played a bit with the Crouch like Richard Parkin at Camberley Town and met Micky Stratford on the schools' coaching circuit!
ps Ewell is the place next door.
Trevor "Tosh" Chamberlain of Fulham fame and Ron "Chopper" Harris are associated with the suburb.