A last, foolish, personal, wandering memory about the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall. At the time, I was running the school magazine, The Pupils' View, of which No.1 son was the editor. (No, he involved me - not the other way round). We were blessed with the help of an art teacher who had a gift for wild drawing of the type just made for magazine covers, and with the creative genius of said No.1 son. And so it was that the edition that Christmas had on its Santa-decked cover a free gift: a piece of concrete, about the size of a pea, supposedly from the Berlin Wall.
Now, I don't know how many gullible infants were convinced by the authenticity of this, though I do know that I heard no-one actually question it. But I have the most vivid memory of two girls, one of whom at least was extremely elegant and beautiful from an early age, sitting on the step of the Techy building, both wearing safety goggles, both wielding hammers, battering a lump of concrete from our drive-in (which is still in a state of disintegration) into small particles. 600 of them. An army of minions then solemnly sellotaped a piece onto each magazine, and off they went...
Get it only in the Pupils' View! Your very own piece of the Berlin Wall!
I knew there were things I missed about teaching ...
I can't believe that it's already 20 years. For me it's like yesterday. I remember exactly the 9th November 20 years ago. I was sitting in front of TV here in Vancouver and wondering what's happening. The atmosphere was great. Young people in Germany lost fear from the regime and expressed their feelings. Everybody was full of hope and joy. I was just afraid that the army could interfere like it was in 1968 in Czechoslovakia but fortunately nothing like that happened.
ReplyDeleteBest regards,
Jay