Mrs Thatcher … was all for freedom. But she liked order, she liked predictability and she liked institutions such as Nato, in which Britain could play a commanding role. The deal at Yalta was that Russia had its sphere of influence and the Western allies had theirs. And that deal had provided — at least for the West — 40 years of stability and prosperity.
I had my own teeny insight into the niceties of this diplomacy from a friend who had had to attend (as sole UK representative) a technical meeting held under the auspices of UNECE.
At that time the West German Environment ministry was, for some reason, located in Berlin rather than in Bonn. Because of this at every such meeting, as soon as proceedings had been opened, there would be an official Russian objection, on the grounds that the location of the ministry was contrary to the 4 power agreement. France, UK & USA took it in turns to stand up & say, with appropriate diplomatic nicety, Nonsense.
My friend had been briefed about all this, but told not to worry, it was the Americans turn.
The UK representative, as a new boy, was naturally in his place well before time. The hour for the meeting to be called to order drew near. No sign of any delegate from the USA, nor indeed of anybody French. My friend was told to be ready to do his bit.
I was quaking, he said. Having visions of being single handedly responsible for the launch of World War III.
The cavalry came over the hill just in time.
Thing is, my friend said, unless you knew all about it you would probably not have taken any notice, it was all so mumbled & quick. Not sturm und drang at all.
*****
I was staying with my regular French exchange family, outside a village in the Midi, when the Berlin Wall went up. I thought something about my imperfect grasp of the language meant that I had misunderstood some idiom or metaphor in which the news was couched. Even when Paris Match arrived, with photographs, I was still simply bewildered. I remember distinctly visualising a wall going up across Trafalgar Square & thinking that kind of thing simply can not happen in a big city.
The next summer I was working as an au pair in a very run down chateau in the Ardennes. Two German girls of my age were also working there, in the kitchen, & naturally we became friends. Their father had been killed in the last days of the war, & the younger sister was in fact born posthumously.
I was shocked at the treatment they got from some of the people around – one estate worker in particular would utter a foul word & spit on the floor whenever he came across them.
I told them about my initial bewilderment about the Wall, how I should really like to be able to go & see it with my own eyes.
They said that if I cared to go & visit them at their home in Bonn (they were due to leave before I did) their mother would be delighted to meet me (partly because I had just been their friend in hostile territory) & I would be able to get a visa to travel to Berlin by train to fulfill my ambition. Which I duly did.
As an aside, one thing which always struck me during the summers in France was the very real idealism of fellow teenagers I met, particularly the French & Germans, about the European Project
That trip to Berlin still seems like a dream – but then not knowing the language often has that effect. I don’t know how complete the construction was by that stage, & of course I had no idea of what the place had looked like before. I could not see over The Wall at all – got no closer than standing at a very respectful distance from one of the checkpoints, before it was time to get back to the station & back to The West before my visa expired.
****
I had my own European technical meeting to go to in the spring of 1980, this one actually held in Berlin. Our British Airways flight went via Hannover, where most of the London passengers got off & it became, essentially an internal flight with mostly German speaking passengers. It was pretty bumpy; the pilot came on to make an announcement, in German. The passengers gasped.
Fortunately my fellow traveller had, as had a surprising number of the men I worked with, done his National Service as an ‘interpreter’ – trained to monitor broadcasts etc in German or Russian to pick up certain key words. He was able to tell me that the pilot was just relaying the results of an important game of football involving a German team.
The plane really yawed on its descent into Berlin – I had the fanciful notion that, rather than just cross winds this might be an established routine in case of unfriendly fire. I guess I was thinking of a friend at university who had a useful addition to his grant from the West German government – earned at the cost of losing his RAF father in the Berlin airlift.
It was the first visit for almost all the delegates, & we ganged up on the chairman to make it clear that the meeting had to finish by lunchtime on Friday so that we could have an afternoon to see round the city.
My fellow UK delegate was keen on the idea of a tourist bus trip – which I feared might be a bit naff, but it was good thinking, especially given our limited time. The Wall itself – now approachable so that we could look over to The East – still had that quality of a dream.
As did, in some ways, the Tiergarten Soviet Memorial, stranded in the British Zone, guarded by what looked like boy soldiers dressed in uniform coats which their mothers had sensibly bought a size too big so that there was room for them to grow into.
My fellow UK delegate was keen on the idea of a tourist bus trip – which I feared might be a bit naff, but it was good thinking, especially given our limited time. The Wall itself – now approachable so that we could look over to The East – still had that quality of a dream.
As did, in some ways, the Tiergarten Soviet Memorial, stranded in the British Zone, guarded by what looked like boy soldiers dressed in uniform coats which their mothers had sensibly bought a size too big so that there was room for them to grow into.
Security checks were very tight at the airport coming home – all passports were being scanned & we had to wait for some kind of OK, it was not just left to the official.
I took the tube home from Heathrow, deciding to change at Hammersmith, despite the long walk to the Metropolitan line. It was about 7 or 8pm. Bleak, sheets of paper blowing about. Another urban dystopia.
I thought I was being fanciful, imagining something more than just the normal Friday night gloom in the air – until I saw the Evening Standard posters announcing the failed attempt to rescue the American hostages in Iran.
I took the tube home from Heathrow, deciding to change at Hammersmith, despite the long walk to the Metropolitan line. It was about 7 or 8pm. Bleak, sheets of paper blowing about. Another urban dystopia.
I thought I was being fanciful, imagining something more than just the normal Friday night gloom in the air – until I saw the Evening Standard posters announcing the failed attempt to rescue the American hostages in Iran.
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