Love this. Probably not able to make it this weekend, but will take a photo as the wall will be outside IWM London’s main entrance for a while...

The more I look at this, the more brilliantly it sums up how I remember the stark difference between East and West Germany when the wall was in place.

In 1979, when I was 10 years old, I was living in Germany as Dad was in the army. He had a conference in Berlin so he decided to take Mum, me and my next sister - so we had a week in Berlin. The wives and families had a schedule of trips and visits and one of these was a trip through Checkpoint Charlie to see the Soviet War Memorial in East Berlin.

We were staying in a hotel just off the Kurfürstendamm in West Berlin. That part of Berlin was so busy and lively and full of colour, noise and smells. I remember lots of women in fur coats and thinking that everything was really decadent. Oh, and German fashion sense is somewhat different (even now) so purple, mustard and green colour combinations for men was quite the norm 😊

We went through the checkpoint in an army bus and even now, 40 years on, I can clearly remember how it felt as if the colour was draining out of the world as we crossed over into East Berlin. By comparison to the West, everything was drab and grey. There weren’t many people on the street apart from the occasional queue outside a shop. Our tour guide said that was probably because the shop had got something rare in, like oranges (!).

When we got to the War Memorial everything was so quiet. Ok, so it was a cemetery so this was to be expected but after the noise of West Berlin this really stood out. Soldiers were marching around, I think that they might have been Russian, and there was an underlying feeling of threat or menace.

I’m not normally a fan of Thierry Noir’s work but this piece, in this context, is perfect – in my opinion. Good luck to anyone who goes to get a signed poster and please let Thierry and Stik know that they have done a fantastic job with this piece.

Lovely post hippychick.

This is the poster. All the, info was, sent out in an email.

Yes, I did. Just to cover my expenses though. Didn’t make any more money out of that. Seemed fair to me but I can imagine some think otherwise.

A few of them actually won the print so they were more than happy I guess :-)

15 members on here did. From that 300 euro’s extra I paid my trainticket (Thalys from Amsterdam to Paris) a 220 euros, a few coffees and a beer in Paris and the taxicab back home because I missed my last bus home in the evening.

Thank you 

I was one of them. I was more than happy to get helped out. Threw him the price of a beer and that was it. 

 Thanks Kjg is one of the sound guys on here  

a pint and a Jamaican cigarette would be fine.

help for the signed show poster. I’ll make it worth your while.

The paper quality on the poster looks good but what on Earth are you going to do with such a horrible image? Use a giant, black mount?