Another Blast from the Past.

The rather diminutive figure crowded out by the imposing stature, not to mention kaleidoscopic colour, of the Berlin Wall is me, aged 21.

My visit to Berlin took the form of a weekend of booze and more booze, but in between drinking sessions I found time to take in the 'sights' of the then divided city/country - Checkpoint Charlie, The Wall, the underground where you would pass through stations last accessed in 1961 when the wall went up, but whose lights still glowed and whose posters and signs depicted a very different era. East Berlin - which was very easy to get in to, but almost impossible to get out of, Potsdam, where the surrender treaty was signed, Dresden - bombed beyond recognition during the war and seemingly never repaired, Spandau Jail, which at the time still housed a solitary, elderly inmate by the name of Rudolph Hess (who would commit suicide some three months after my visit - was it something I said?) the prison being demolished the following month to avoid it becoming a site of pilgrimage to Germans sympathetic to the Nazi regime.

Less than two years after my visit The Wall was overpowered by the will of the people to escape the past and Berlin was once more reunited.

Dig the shades by the way!!