Berlin - first visit

Between the 11th and 18th of December we were staying in Berlin.

We saw many reminders of Berlin's turbulent recent history. The facade of the Anhalter Bahnhof  (railway station) has been left as it was after the WWII bombing. The rest of the building has been demolished. From here 9,600 Jews were transported from 1941 to 1945.

A Holocaust Memorial has been created on land near the old Berlin wall. The memorial is made up of a grid of concrete blocks of different heights. In the centre they tower over you and are probably intended to be disorienting.

Most of the Berlin Wall, constructed by East Germany to stop citizens going to the west, has been removed. The East Side Gallery, painted by many invited international artists, is the largest section of Berlin Wall still standing. This picture depicts Leonid Brezhnev (USSR Leader) and Erich Honecker (East German Leader) greeting each other with a fraternal kiss. It reads 'Mein Gott, hilf mir, diese tödliche Liebe zu überleben', which in English means 'My God, help me survive this deadly love'.

One side of the wall holds the East Side gallery. The west side has more standard graffiti.

The East Berlin red and green men at pedestrian crossing are featured on tourist gifts. There are also bits of the wall to be purchased in various sizes. That these have become tourist gifts does nothing to remove from some people's memory how threatening it felt at one time with the border guards and spies everywhere. People were shot trying to cross the wall or swim the River Spree.

The most famous Berlin landmark is the Brandenburg Gate. The wall ran down there too cutting it off in no man's land.

Even the Reichstag was off limits until reunification, when by a small majority it was decided to move parliament back from Bonn to Berlin. The Reichstag interior was rebuilt and a dome added. The dome has a spiral walkway that gives views down into the chamber and out across the city. This is now the place were the German Government meet.

We also visited Charlottenburg Palace (porcelain room above) and learned about the first King of  Prussia, and his wife Charlotte, who died before this and others rooms she had helped design were completed. We learned how a later King of Prussia became the Emperor of Germany in 1871, after the different German lands were united. The royal family had the name Hohenzollern. They had fairly humble origins but big military ambitions.

Berlin Zoo is a peaceful place for tourists to visit in the former western sector. On a cold day there are many indoor animal enclosures to help keep visitors and animals warm. It was the first time we ever saw a real Panda. The Male Panda (Jiao Qing) sat behind bamboo, eating the stalks. The female panda did some climbing on a rock, and ate bamboo as we watched. East Berlin made their own zoo, which still exists, and the two zoos now work together.

We also saw a lot of interesting art on our trip, both in the Gemaldegalerie,  part of the new culture centre, and in the old National Gallery on museum island. We had hoped to visit the New National Gallery shown in our 2019 guide, but it is still being built. There is a lot of building work in Berlin.

During the visit I was reading Leaving Berlin, a novel which tells of the start of the cold war and the competing Russian, American and fledgling East German agents and informers.  I finished the book on the return trip from Berlin Tegel to Gatwick Airport. In the book were place names, we had visited. That made the exciting story even more engaging.

Death of a South Nutfield Lad

On the war memorial in top Nutfield are many familiar village names and the words "Lest we Forget" our men of Nutfield.

On the 1st of November 1918 (one hundred years ago) the Surrey Mirror carried this piece... 'Death of a South Nutfield Lad'

"It is with much .sorrow we record the death of Pte. Albert Edward Joiner (“Bert”), aged 19 years, late East Yorks Regt., second and dearly loved son of Mr. and Mrs. G. A. Joiner, 29, Trindles Road. South Nutfield, who was killed in action in France on the night of Sept. 3rd, by a machine gun bullet. It was a relief to know he did not suffer any pain, as was killed instantaneously.

Showing a keen interest in gardening he entered the gardens at Nutfield Priory shortly after leaving school, and stayed there until the time of joining the Colours.

Pte. A. E. Joiner was a member of the Nutfield C.L.B., a very persevering boy, possessed of a very cheerful disposition, refined, and was greatly beloved by all who knew him.

On joining in May, 1917. he was placed at Dover in training battalion, from there he went to Bridlington, in Yorkshire, at that time being the East Riding Yeomanry. In February he was sent to Ireland, where he remained until July, and was then drafted to France, and afterwards transferred to the East Yorks Regt.

Mr. and Mrs. Joiner have received many letters of condolence and sympathy, for which they and all members of the family are deeply grateful. The Chaplain from the deceased’s battalion wrote: “Bv the time this letter gets to you you will have heard the sad news of your boy. Pte. A. E. Joiner. He was killed by a machine gun bullet on the night Sept. 3rd. and the next day we buried him in a British cemetery. We put flowers on his grave, and intend to erect a cross. The news will have come as a cruel blow to you. May God help you to bear it. You must always be proud of your boy. He died bravely doing his duty. Now he is away from the hardship and horror of war, and, I know, would not have you grieve too much for him. His comrades join with me in this sincere expression of sympathy with you."

Thanks to the https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk and Surrey Mirror for this tribute. All Rights reserved

St Lawrence's Hospital / Caterham Mental Hospital

Not much of the former hospital of St Lawrence's now remains. A plaque has been put up recently by  The Bourne Society on what was the main gate post.

Beyond that is the new housing that replaced the hospital. The road names off St Lawrence Way do apparently remember people associated with the hospital: Deacon, Straw, Danvers, Gwynne, Bunce, Drew, Pye, Marcuse. Joey Deacon was very well known.

Beyond the houses the land dips away to an open area, and a tree covered walk in the valley - Green Lane, and beyond that is Surrey National Golf Club.

Old postcards (like this one) show how the front entrance looked when the building was big enough to house 1500 residents from the Metropolitan area of London, and when it was a large employer of people from Caterham.

What has been kept is the screen of high trees, the fence and gate posts.

The admin block was attractive as shown in this 1923 picture by, I think, G Aschinger.

Beyond that there was the male side and the female side with the utility corridor connecting them, off which came the kitchen, the pharmacy, the laundry, the swimming pool, recreation hall, tailors shop, dentist, and everything needed to keep a hospital community going.

It was a large hospital built to keep the cost per patient down and probably had no great architectural merit. The grounds were extensive. So it was bulldozed rather than converted, when the era of Victorian Mental Hospitals ended in the 1990s. The residents had been rehoused in smaller units by the 1990s Lifecare NHS Trust. Much better for them than living in groups of up to 40.

The Loft - 46 Westway, Caterham

In 1982 Noel and Maureen moved to Caterham in Surrey and set up an antique business called the Loft at 46 Westway. (picture slightly distorted as taken from their album).

Noel also used his photographic talents in the business and that became the main money earner. He still has a Instant Passport Pictures sign in the window. He took passport photos of many of the residents of St Lawrences Hospital at the far end of the Westway. The snowy picture by Noel is one of the many on his walls in his shop.

Noel was once an adventurer and rally driver who started life in New South Wales, and spent time in Papua New Guinea, and other antipodean locations until coming to Caterham with Maureen (pictured behind him), and his growing family.

Next week Noel and Maureen close up shop in Caterham after 36 years  to move to somewhere new, and a time to enjoy full retirement.

Cardington R101 Memorial

The last time I walked through Cardington was in November, and I was suprised to see, near the two big hangers, one of the prototype airships outside. Development of the prototype Airlander 10 continues inside the hangers.

The village sign has an airship, and inside the church is a memorial, and a stall with airship memorabilia and newspaper cuttings about the R101 disaster, and back numbers of The Dirigible - a magazine for airship enthusiasts.

In the village cemetery is the mass grave and memorial to those who died when His Majesty's Airship R101 came down in bad weather in France on 5th october 1930, during a maiden flight. It caught fire on a hillside. Of the 48 crew and 6 passengers, there were 6 survivors. The airship had been built in Cardington. The newspaper cuttings show that the bodies, of those killed, lay side by side beneath the soil under the memorial.

St Andrews - Headington - An Epiphany

In Old Headington, a village within the city of Oxford, you will find St Andrew's Church. It flies the Saltire or Saint Andrew's Cross, the Scottish flag in the heart of England.

The church was open, and warm and welcoming. One chapel was decorated with white cyclamen with the three Maji kneeling,  bringing their gifts after a long pilgrimage: Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. The camel was also kneeling at the Station of the Epiphany.

On the other side of the entrance was a window, the lead-work forming tree branches, and the glass delicately painted with leaves.

The church had a new organ. Next to the organ were music books. One older looking book had a marker at Epiphany.

"OH WORSHIP the Lord in the beauty of holiness!
Bow down before him, his glory proclaim;
With gold of obedience and incense of lowliness,
Kneel and adore him the Lord is his name!"

(Post dedicated to John Clapp whose stone I saw by chance in the memorial garden behind the church. He had been the organist in this church from 1993 - 2009, and my boss at work from 1984 for quite a few years.)