Tanya Heaslip

Well, it was overwhelmingly joyous.

And I'd grown up with modern European history saying,

the evils of the Soviet era and the Soviet Union will remain forever.

Nobody ever imagined that really this could happen.

It was fairytale-like.

There were people dancing on top of the wall, drinking champagne, the little, what do they call those trebants?

Little cars, yeah, the trebants.

Yeah, those little cars chugging through Checkpoint Charlie.

Yeah, they had lawnmower engines on them.

Yes.

People running through, people hugging families who'd been separated by the wall for years.

It was magical.

And there was this very stern-looking soldier there, hobnail boots and grim.

And he looked like he was in a place where he no longer had a job, nowhere to go, nothing to do.

And I said, would you chip me out a bit of wool, please?

Well, I couldn't speak in German, but he got the gist and I got my bit of wool from him.

And it was just life-changing because I thought, right, this shows history can change.

This shows what you think is the great evil, the totalitarian regime, they can fall.

And I just thought, right,

I didn't know how my year was going to end.