Hawkshead, the Lake District village where William Wordsworth went to school and "held unconscious intercourse with beauty", is to establish a pioneering link with a remote village in eastern Macedonia.

The venture, to be launched at a meeting in Hawkshead on Wednesday, is believed to be the first of its kind by such small communities.

Hawkshead has a population of 600. Capari, with only 500, has no known literary connections but does have a textile factory.

The scheme's promoters insist that this is not a twinning arrangement, providing free holidays and free booze to local worthies, but an attempt to promote education and understanding between two European peoples who know little about each other.

"There is so much tension and fundamentalism in the world," said James Johnson, the retired lawyer who conceived the idea while lying in his bath.

"It's all very well for governments to speak to other nations, but we felt that communication also needs to be established at grassroots level. And I do not think I have heard of any other village that has done it."

Part of the plan is to share resources as well as people, and Hawkshead is already collecting English books to send to Capari. A bustling honey-pot for tourists, who come to pay homage to Wordsworth, climb the fells or buy cheap shirts, it hopes to help Capari, 10 miles from the university town of Bitola, to use tourism to boost its income.

"We wanted to see if we could establish a partnership between us and a village in eastern Europe," Mr Johnson said. "We wanted the link to be of value to young people, perhaps during gap years, but did not want visits to involve air fares which were too expensive."

In their long search for the right village, Hawkshead's pioneers were referred to the British Council, where Andrew Hadley recommended Macedonia. He is now the council's director there.

A few people from Hawkshead travelled to Capari at their own expense last month to establish contact.They took with them a small mountain of Kendal mint cake and the best wishes of the village.

"We were treated like royalty," Mr Johnson said.

The delegation, who visited Capari's primary school, hope that one of the first benefits of a link will be connections between pupils in the two villages.

"The main second language is English, and it is taught in the primary school," Mr Johnson said. "But they have hardly any English books, so we are trying to arrange for parcels to be sent out."

The delegation also toured Capari's fish farm, museum, textile factory and monastery.