I will never forget the day my dad drove me to Harwich in order to board the ferry which was planning to head for Rotterdam the same day. so good bye to everyone in England I thought to myself as I waved good bye to him. along with my work tools, sleeping bag and £500 in my pocket which I borrowed off of family members and that id pay them back on my first visit back to England. here I was, just turned 23 and beaming with excitement about my stay in west Germany. anyhow once aboard the mighty ship I found the nearest bar and sat indulging myself with beer. I hadn’t arranged for a room so I stayed up as late I could and falling asleep somewhere beneath a table. I was awakened by big sounds of bustling people just scouring around for breakfast and I to say the least felt quite hung over. so upon arrival to Rotterdam I was to catch the train to nijmagen in Holland and meet up with the agency man who I had spoken to from England and that he would set me up for work in a west german town called beilefeld. so I eventually met the agency and spoke about work over a beer in a hotel and he suggested he will pay the train fare and would drive me to the train station and wrote down the stops I had to change at and when to actually get off. well as it just so happens there I was sat in this blokes car listening to him whilst hes on his phone and he paused looked straight at me and asked, do you wanna go to berlin for work, cause his agencies were looking for someone with plastering skills and could start there straight away and there was lots of it too. I said yes barely had he finished his asking me if I wanna go to berlin question so I said yes. that answer yes was at the most pivitol time of my life because I was now customiising myself not to be incarcerated under the majesty law back in England so after 2 and half years rather I was going to be let loose in a city that had, as I discovered, its ups and downs over the years but this city berlin in 1989 was destined to open up the gates and knock the long time standing berlin wall down. I arrived in berlin at the end of 1993 and even after 5yrs had past since the wall was destroyed the citizens were still relishes in the new found rejoice between east and west berliners. after catching the train from Holland to destination berlin and after 5 changes and 9 stops later my destination had arrived. it was a terrible journey on the train because I felt excited but very anxious at the same time. I didn’t have a clue where I was so I got off the tranin at freidrichshaine which is in the centre of berlin and grabbed a taxi cab who I asked if he could drive me to this place that I was heading for. the works office of grutzner plastering who wanted to employ me. I will also never forget that when the taxi dropped me off because as I got out the taxi I stepped into a couple of feet of snow and this was at 3am and in the middle of no-where. I felt scared and stranded so I unzipped my sleeping bag which mum had made up for me got in and was woken up at 8am at the entrance gate with 5 germans looking down at me wondering what the hell I was doing. all I knew was that im glad someone turned up and im alive and im not frozen to death. I think it was a 12hr train journey and I felt zapped out already but I was still keen to get to work. that day a short arsed broken english speaking boss man drove me to my digs which was 64 wackenberger strasse, pankow, east berlin and settled into my bedroom. I was told to make sure I was ready for picking up at 4am so I did just that. 4am had arrived and my pick up had so jumped in the van with 3 german plasterers and we had to drive an hour to get to a place struassberg which was well outside of east berlin. I was half way there and a pull in to the petrol station but not for petrol but packs of Berliner kindle, a small glass of bottled beer and before I knew it it was 7am and had to begin work but I had drunk 6 bottles of beer already and I couldn’t believe this was their culture I live in now so must adapt new trends of drinking beer in the morning to make a cheery and drunken day ahead but I knew berlin had a lot more to offer other than drinking beer first thing in the morning with your breakfast and I knew in the back of my mind, remember I lived in the outside of eastern berlin, that once I have settled into the routine of work etc I would brave it to venture into berlin city centre to see what all the fuss was about. this took me about 3 months to achieve. slowly train stop by train stop so I could remember the way home cause I was so scared of getting lost but even more than that I was totally aware of how vulnerable I was at that time. it was quite strange to be honest because those thoughts of me having ventured in the bright lights of berlin and get lost amongst it all but scary and was always determined never to let anything really bad happen just be ok and survive which believe it or not I did.
my life in berlin 20yrs ago. 