What did the first Cherbourg flag, created in 1963, look like?

What did the first Cherbourg flag, created in 1963, look like?
What did the first Cherbourg flag, created in 1963, look like?

Par

Editorial La Presse de la Manche

Published on

Jan 5, 2025 at 12:16 p.m.

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L’identity of a city also goes through its symbols. Today, the unified city of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin (Manche), under the same standard, displays a common color: a violet pur.

However, for years, the symbol of the town was the “musical seagull”, emblem of Cherbourg freedoma city open to the sea and accompanied by the songs of seagulls.

This seagull was the graphic creation of a communications agency. But it is also the fruit of a friendship storyborn from a conversation and a common idea, between the mayor Jean-Pierre Godefroy and the poet of Cotentin, Côtis-Capel.

For several decades, the “ seagull musical » was thus the flag of all Cherbourg residents.However, before her, our city sported a another flag.

Twinning with Bremerhaven

The story of the first modern Cherbourg flag is also the result of a friendship but with our German friends from Bremerhaven in 1963.

During a visit by a delegation from Bremerhaven to the Cotentin in 1960, the Germans had in fact offered their communal flag to the City of Cherbourg. During another visit of the delegation, the red and white flag of this German sister city had beenhoisted on the pediment of the town hall cherbourgeois.

Many residents then wondered what this flag was that was flying. But at the town hall, the elected officials had noticed a first problem: the absence of a Cherbourg flag to accompany that of Bremerhaven.

Second problem, still in 1963, a Cherbourg delegation led by the Lyric Union had to go to the German city. Impossible for Cherbourg residents to go to Germany without giving a gift to their friends.

The idea of create a flag especially for Cherbourg thus germinated in the minds of the elected officials. At the time, communication was not a major issue, and advertising from the 80swere not not yet up to date.

In the60swe are still at advertising era. So, no need to contact a graphic designer or an external agency: the first flag of Cherbourg was therefore the fruit of the work and talent of his youth.

Respect for tradition

In 1963 the municipality of Doctor Jacques Hébert thus mandated its municipal school of Fine Arts to think about creating a flag for Cherbourg. This is how the folder arrived on the desktopfrom the school director at the time, Mr. Typhagne . It's up to him to imagine the new emblem of the port city.

However, imagination had its limits and had to respond to a precise specificationsand to a general idea imposed by the City: “The flag must necessarily feature the arms of Cherbourg and the arms of . »

The new flag was made in-housewithin the municipal school of Fine Arts, by the students . A bright red flag, bearing the arms of Cherbourg as close as possible to the pole, with its six-pointed stars and three gold bezants. THE respect for heraldic codes of the Cherbourg coat of arms was at the heart of this achievement. The floating part, for its part, was composed of two golden leopards from Normandy.

The first copyof the flag of Cherbourg was offered to the City of Bremerhaven, thus testifying to the friendship between two peoples who had to turn the page of wars to prepare together a common future.

This version of the Cherbourg flag was kept for many years, before being replaced by the “musical seagull” at the late 1980s .

Beyond contemporary flags and logos, the city's historic coat of arms will continue, through the centuries, to be, forever, the one and onlyCherbourg emblembelonging to everyone.

Nicolas CALLUAUD

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