We sat at Checkpoint Charlie, drunk, stupid capitalists.

Today is the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Twenty years ago today I was sitting on the wall at Checkpoint Charlie. I was drunk on vodka and the whole crazy, weird, madness of the situation. How ironic for us, middle class Interior Design students from Middlesex University in England, to be some of the first people to witness this historic event – to have front row seats if you like in this one time only show. The greatest show I ever went to, in fact. I was too young and stupid to even know or care about the implications of what I was witnessing. Everyone kept harping on about it being an historic event, and we knew this, but I don’t think it sunk in till much later what sort of scale of event we were fortunate enough to be observers at. We thought of ourselves as socialists, lefties, politically aware – but of course we weren’t. We were about as politically unaware as it is possible to be. We mouthed left-wing sentiments but harboured very capitalist, conventional desires and aspirations. We had no idea what it meant to live in a Communist state, and how could we? We were constantly complaining about Margaret Thatcher and wanted a revolution, but if one had arrived we would not have been the first out of bed in the morning to go and fight any battles.

We had even been through to East Berlin that very day. It was cold but sunny I think, and we were anxious to experience as much of the ‘East’ as we could. We laughed at the rows of Trabants and gaped at the grey blandness of the tower blocks, we tried to eat food in a ‘workers cafe’ and found it unpalatable in the extreme, especially when out of the vegetable soup that some of the vegetarians in our group ordered came rising ominous pink lumps of identifiable animal matter. We ascended the Fernsehturm and looked out across the divided city, we went to an art museum and I don’t remember what we saw there, and we tried to buy things in a supermarket but they had nothing to sell that would have been any use as a keepsake, in fact there was barely anything on the shelves at all. I did manage to buy an album in a music shop – strangely, a Richard Strauss opera, Salome, which I don’t think I ever listened to.

At about six o’clock we walked back to Checkpoint Charlie. It was dark, and we had to negotiate a few poorly lit back streets to find the border. I think we may have got lost at one point – the border to the West is not signposted well. There were a few large groups of people hanging around. They were acting a little oddly, they were huddled quietly, not being loud or aggressive or anything. We barely paid them any attention at the time, only later realised the significance.

We finally found the border and Checkpoint Charlie and popped back into the West with a sigh of relief. We went to a restaurant with neon lights and fat candles on the tables, and ate Western food, drank Western alcohol and got Westernly merry. We went back to the hotel, a couple of kilometres from the wall and sat in the hotel bar, and drank more and got drunker. The Germans in the bar were watching the tiny TV hanging over the bar. We were quite drunk by around ten o’clock and noticed that there was a huge crowd of very excited people around the TV. Someone went over and asked what was happening. They came back over. The Germans are excited because East Germany has opened the border. They are letting people through to the West.

How long did it take us for the information to sink in? Our addled brains finally did realise that this was ‘an historic event’ and then there was only one option. We had to get back to the wall. We started walking, and headed for a tube station. But the tubes were packed, and it looked a hopeless task. So we walked. Very fast. We made it, finally. The crowds were big, but not huge. The news had not yet reached everyone. There weren’t even that many TV crews there – in fact I don’t remember seeing a single TV crew. We pressed through the throng to the wall, and there people were already sitting crammed like a row of excited seagulls. A blond German guy hauled me up and I managed to get a prime position. Over in Nomans Land there was a row of green clad soldiers, all linked arms, pale as ghosts. They didn’t move a muscle, but they looked confused. Just a few hours ago their orders would have been to shoot anyone doing what we were doing now!

Vodka was passed down the line of people on the wall. At Checkpoint Charlie the wall was very narrow, not like at the Brandenburg Gate where several people could stand across the width. I was trying to take photographs, but was jostled and dropped my camera into Nomans Land. The guard closest to me looked straight at me and I asked him to give me my camera back. He didn’t do anything for a few seconds, then he bent down, picked my camera up and handed it back to me. Not a word. I drunkenly expressed my thanks but he didn’t smile or speak at all. He was very young and good looking. I only took a few pictures that night, and of them only one came out and neither I nor the wall are in it.

We went to a bar later and found ourselves talking to a very young guy who had come over. He was very excited about his first purchase in the West, a Beastie Boys album (well, tape) and a Walkman. He didn’t speak very good English, but he kept saying, ‘Margaret Thatcher, she great person, she hero..’ or something along those lines. Luckily we didn’t know enough German to be able to tell him that we didn’t share his opinion of the Iron Lady. But it was my first realisation that somewhere along the line, my ideals were a little contradictory. How did my socialism stand up to scrutiny? And why was I celebrating the downfall of communism, when I considered myself just a little communist…? And was Maggie a hero, after all? I just didn’t know any more.

We returned to Checkpoint Charlie in the morning and the cavalcade of people were still coming through. TV crews had now cottoned on and had set up right by the gates and were sticking their big microphones into every car that came through. We went into the Museum Am Checkpoint Charlie and climbed out of a window on the third floor to watch from on the scaffolding that covered the front of the building. The atmosphere was still electric. We didn’t seem to have hangovers. At one point I watched, fascinated, as a little old lady staggered back towards the border, carrying two plastic bags stuffed full of nothing but bananas. She kept having to put them down. When she saw me, she picked them up and shook them excitedly, but almost defiantly. ‘Banana!’ she shouted at me, happily. I nodded, grinning inanely. Banana. Yes. I still hold that image in my head. Fresh fruit was going to become quite a big issue in the newly unifed Germany, but at the time it was just a little old lady, happy that she could now buy bananas.

Well, I will stop reminiscing there. It seems a lifetime ago, almost another universe. I was starting out in life, and I believed that anything was possible. The me that was me then was a different person, with different views, opinions, desires, loves, anxieties. Even different cells. It is so strange to think that I sat on Checkpoint Charlie, and watched one of the biggest historical events of modern history unfold.

Owen is very well, by the way, and sleeping peacefully.

He makes my life complete in a way nothing and no one else has ever done or will do.