Berlin

Another ‘band photo’ is posted above and one that was defiantly posed, I’m embarrassed to say. The venue was a courtyard somewhere in East Berlin in the mid-1980s. This was a fine holiday that took these three intrepid hipsters (plus C2 who took the picture) through Europe by train in order to stay in Berlin for a week or so and then Munich for about three nights. I remember very little about Munich apart from a boozy afternoon in a huge park. Berlin, on the other hand, was an uplifting experience to the extent that a return trip took place one year later. We (apart from C2, who was far too chic for such capers) ebulliently and innocently played dice cricket (also known as ‘owzat’) throughout the train journey which true Goths would never have done. The next year we packed the Subbuteo and ‘flicked to kick’ endlessly before striding confidently into the city to experience the Berlin nightlife. I bet David Bowie and Lou Reed never did that when they lived there. If ‘the band’ had existed, it would have played Sisters of Mercy and Cure styled compositions and would have been unapologetically gloomy.

Left to right: C, the author, B. We were teenagers.