And me please
Mushroomman what a incredibly piece of history and what a photograph, not many non military personal used that crossing i would have thought untill late 1970s
Having used it my self at a later year date 1990S ,a bit different, however the military lane was still used in ,fact when the wall come down me, and a lot of other drivers were caught up in the whole charade, as coming out of Poland in to the then EAST GERMANY the road was flooded with tribants and all the other muck chucking out cars ,it was enough to choke you , in fact when we eventually got back helmestad we were sent up the milatry lane and told on no account stop, its full just keep going to wherever ,i ended up at Aachen i never stopped, and i had a frozen load,pork back fat for a sausage factory… on a Saturday night /sunday dinner time bushed…not a peep from the cutoms they knew where we had come from and just left me and others alone [the first time ever…]PS I HAVE A EXIT EAST GERMAN STAMP .TWO POLISH,AND NO ENTRY IN TO EAST GERMANY for that trip it closed that quick…pdb
Most interesting indeed Mushrooman, please continue mate 
Cheers, Patrick
We drove along until we came to a gate across the road which was closed with a padlock and a chain. Through the gate we could see a sentry box along with a couple of soldiers who were carrying rifles. Not far away was a tall watch tower with a large searchlight next to one of the windows and we could see another soldier looking down at us with a pair of binoculars. We could hear a bell sounding like an old telephone ringing in the sentry box, one of the soldiers dashed in to answer it and then ran across to open the gate for us. We drove passed him as he waved us forward towards a couple of buildings. There was D.D.R. (Deutsche Demokratische Republik ) flag flying alongside the Red Flag with the hammer and sickle of the United Soviet Socialists Republics outside a line of buildings, where a group of about four soldiers or policemen were standing. One of them came over to the car and saluted us, we didn’t know what to do as we were wearing civilian clothing and we were always told not to salute unless you were in uniform and you were wearing your hat. I didn’t want to appear rude so I just opened the door and with a big smile I gave him our B.T.D’s. I could tell that he was Russian by the red star cap badge with the hammer and sickle logo on it. He seemed friendly enough but I felt a cold stare from the other three guards who looked like they were East Germans. He did as we had been told, he passed the B.T.D’s. into the window which was quickly slammed shut. Jeanette and I just stood there, saying nothing but we both knew what each other was thinking by our facial expressions. The Russian officer walked over to a Russian looking green type of Jeep that I recognised by the markings of one of the photos the British Army policeman had shown us half an hour before. How he told us to remember it was to think of a bottle of Amstel Dutch beer because their label was a circle which was white at the top and red at the bottom. The markings on the door of the vehicle were very similar except it had the letters C.A. on it. After about five minutes the window opened, our docs were placed in a tray and the window slammed shut again. It reminded me of something out of The Adams Family, the place certainly felt uneasy and unfriendly. The Russian officer came over, he gave us our documents back and walked over to our car with us. He had a quick look inside the car but he didn’t touch anything and said you are free to go now. He waived over to another couple of East Germans who were stood by another sentry box further along and they started lifting up the barrier. I can’t remember how many civilian cars were there or even if there were any trucks at the time as we were just focussed on what was happening to us but we both agreed that it was a very uncomfortable feeling and we were really pleased to get out of the place.
We came down the slip road from the customs onto the autobahn which we could see had been blocked off just to our left. Straight away we could feel the difference between the West German autobahn and the East German autobahn. There were some small sections that were still cobbled and you got the rhythm of bud dum, bud dum, bud dum, as we drove along. Most parts had been tarmacked but there were places where the covering was very thin, the result being that there were loads of pot holes. It was a two lane autobahn and the inside lane appeared to have two fairly deep grooves which had been made by heavy trucks and seemed to send the cars steering all over the place. In the end I decided to stay in the left hand lane but what surprised us both was that there was hardly any traffic about, especially as today was a Friday. The lorries that we did see looked like they were left overs from the war as most of them looked like ex German army. You could easily tell which were the newer vehicles as they all had West German or Berlin registrations numbers. We soon got to know if we were following a local vehicle by the plume of black or blue smoke that trailed behind most of them. The cars were a collection of Trabants, Ladas or Wartburgs or Fartburgs as we began to call them due to the engine noise that they made. One of the things that scared us was the amount of watch towers that were besides the autobahn, some of them were manned and they were very well concealed. You hardly knew that they were there until you were almost along side them but you could tell that they must of had a great view for miles of the traffic approaching them. We must of noticed three people on different bridges looking along the autobahn with binoculars and every now and again you would see a monument to the D.D.R. with its hammer and compass logo. Soon after we had left the border the countryside appeared to flatten out and it looked like a very agricultural area. Many people were working in the fields and at one stage we noticed an area where there were quite a few coal mines as you could see the winding gear wheels in the distance. The large towns all seemed to be miles away from the autobahn and we just couldn’t believe how empty the autobahns were.
We didn’t stop anywhere, Jeanette had made us loads of sandwiches that morning and filled our flask up with coffee, so we ate on the go. We never had much money so all our trips were on a shoestring budget but when you are twenty two you can put up with lots of things and a bit of discomfort never lasted very long. We always carried a tent in the car and there was just enough for the two of us to sleep in the back which we often did, once we had dropped the back seats down. The car was a second hand, left hand drive Volkswagen about ten years old with a 1300 c.c. engine on a six volt electrical system which was often a (z.b.) to start on a cold winters morning but this was September in the middle of Europe, it was coming up to midday and the tarmac on the road was starting to melt. So it made us both laugh out very loud when we could see in the distance two figures stood next to a police car and we thought that they were going to flag us down. I knew that I was doing below the speed limit so I didn’t slow down, they stared at us but what we thought was so funny was that they were both wearing long leather coats and they looked like somebody out of the Gestapo. The temperature was probably creeping up to about 30 degrees Celsius at the time so we couldn’t understand why they were dressed like that, unless they had just been issued with a new coat.
The road to Berlin was very well sign posted so long as you followed the signs for West Berlin and didn’t take the exit for The Berlin Ring Road. We pulled into the East German border and gave our Berlin Travel Documents to the Russian soldier on duty. Once again the B.T.D’s were passed through a small window which was left open due to the hot weather I presumed. The atmosphere seemed a lot friendlier here, even the East German soldiers said “Hello” to us, everybody were wearing short sleeves shirts and it felt like it was getting even hotter. After about ten minutes our papers appeared again, the Russian said something to the East German who waved towards a barrier where another couple of soldiers were leaning against a sentry box. They lifted up the barrier, waved us forward and as we passed through they gave us a friendly wave so we both waved back.
Ahead of us, I.I.R.C. was a bridge with the words Welcome To Berlin. You Are Now Entering The American Sector, after a two and a quarter hours drive we had now arrived at Checkpoint Bravo. Up in front we could see a large American Stars and Strips flag and the building next door had a smaller Union Jack. We passed a couple of American G.I.‘s as we drove up to the building on our left, they were sat in the shade and didn’t appear to take any notice of us so I just drove up to a door with a Union flag above it. I gave the Royal Military Police corporal our B.T.D’.s and he asked us if we wanted a drink of cool water out of what looked like an American water fountain. Is it always this hot I asked him and he replied no but we seem to be having quite a hot spell at the moment. He offered us both a seat as he filled in our details in a large log book. Have you seen any unusual military activity in the last couple of hours he asked. No, I replied but there does seem to be quite a few East German policeman about. He stopped writing and said, they didn’t stop you did they. No, I said, there just seems to be a lot of them. There are always lots of them around he said, they are probably there when you can’t even see them, he added. Where are you staying while you are here he asked. At the campsite at R.A.F. Gatow I replied, can you tell us the best way how to get there. He opened a draw and took out a map of West Berlin and drew a line along the best route for us to take, you can keep this he said. He gave us back our Berlin Travel Doc’s and said, don’t lose this, you will need it for your return journey next week. We thanked him and he said have a great time, it’s a great city with lots of interesting things to see and do. He was right, it was already beginning to feel like one of those places that you just knew that you were going to like it.
We drove around to Gatow which was in The British Sector, I can’t remember how long it took but we did drive straight there and didn’t get lost. We reported to the guardroom and asked them if I could phone my mate Paul on their internal telephone system and as luck would have it one of the lads who was in the guard room lived in the same barrack block as Paul and said that he knew who we were as Paul had told him that we were coming. I spoke to Paul and he said that he couldn’t get away from work until 5 p.m. and said that he would come straight over to the campsite. R.A.F. Gatow had their own campsite at the side of the airfield and charged a very low rate for staying there, the proceeds went to one of their station charities. Anybody in the British Military were allowed to use it as long as they had booked ahead of their arrival but I heard they would always squeeze you in if you had driven over from West Germany. Paul had already mentioned to me that every Sunday morning an R.A.F. coach had started driving into East Berlin to let newly posted in R.A.F. personnel get a chance to see what life was like in an Eastern Block country. The trip had taken years to set up and I heard that it had to go to the top military level before permission had been approved. We had been told that it was quite an experience and had asked Douggie , our other friend if he would book us two places on the trip for Sunday which was in two days time. You could only go on the bus if you were wearing your best uniform so for that reason we had both brought our uniforms along with us.
We had to book in at the guardroom as visitors and asked them where about the campsite was, Paul’s friend asked the sergeant if he could show us where it was and he said that it was O.K. So Pauls mate jumped on to an old R.A.F. issue push bike and said, follow me. He was pedalling flat out and we were crawling behind him and after about ten minutes we came to a old building at what he called the campsite. It was a good job that we had booked in advance as we were the only ones there.
The airfield at Gatow had been built before the second world war and a lot of the buildings looked as if they hadn’t changed since then. It had a lot of history to it and played a very important part in The Berlin Airlift in 1948 when The Russians blocked off all the roads and the railway leading from West Germany to West Berlin.
youtube.com/watch?v=_nHdB1vJNsg
The airfield at Gatow was next to a lake called the Havelsee and when we met up with Paul and Douggie that night to go for a drink somebody mentioned a story about a Russian plane crashing in the lake some years before and something about sending the radar system and some parts over to Farnborough for analysis. The British recovered the plane and a few days later gave it back to the Russians.
Now I haven’t thought much about that story for over forty four years and the other day I thought that I would do a Google search to see if anybody had ever mentioned anything about it. I was a bit Gobsmacked when this turned up.
smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/ … 04022.html
If anybody is interested in our trip into East Berlin then let me know and I shall carry on.
Riveting,so interesting,you may not think so , AS for the roads they were still the same ,worse in a twin steer Daf and tri axle trailer … NO civilisation near the roads any where in East GERMANY even Polands ring roads were well away from the towns.
Please carry on,however would you just break the script up a bit.in smaller segments,as i have to enlarge the print because i get lost as to where i am reading .tks pdb.
On the Saturday it was Jeanette’s 21st birthday and we had arranged to go with Paul and Douggie for a days sightseeing around West Berlin.
West Berlin in the early seventies was quite a vibrant city with lots of building work going on. You can always tell how prosperous a city really is by the amount of tower cranes that are operating and Berlin certainly had it’s fair share. Business appeared to be booming, all the shops were full with many of them selling luxury items and one of the things that struck me were the amount of top end cars that could be seen driving around. At a guess, I would say that 60% of them were newish Volkswagen Beetles but one of the things that surprised me was the number of very expensive American cars displaying an American Forces Europe number plate. A lot of them were what they now call muscle cars with big powerful engines, there were quite a few Ford Mustangs about but I can also remember seeing the latest Jaguar at the time on American plates.
Douggie explained to me why all the American soldiers seemed to have new cars, we all knew that they were getting paid a lot more money than we were but it turned that if you were a G.I. posted to Europe then you could buy a brand new car tax free in the States. Then you could have it sent over to West Germany free of charge as the Americans classed cars as being household items. It was very different compared to British personnel who were posted to Germany because depending on your rank then the more personal effects you could take with you but with cars you had to make your own arrangements to transport them. If a British squaddie wanted to take a car back to the U.K. he had to own it abroad for at least a year and then keep it for two years in the U.K. before he sold it or he would have to pay the full import duty.
One of the reasons I am mentioning this is because I hope that it spurs the memories of some of the older lads who learnt to drive while they were doing their National Service overseas. I am sure that there are still a few Trucknet members like Harry Gill and Ron Hawkins or Gerry Macgraph who could also add an unusual or a some what amusing anecdote from the fifties/sixties. I remember working with lots of the old lads who served in the war or did National Service and most of them had an interesting tale to tell which now have all been forgotten.
I remember one lad telling me that he joined up as a driver/mechanic and after he did his training he was posted to Germany. He had saved up a few quid and was looking to buy his first car when a German civilian who he was working with told him about a vehicle auction that was going to be held in Dusseldorf a couple of weeks later. The auction was being held by the German Post Office and they were getting rid of a lot of Volkswagen Beetles and Combi panel vans. Now some of these vehicles were right hand drives because they enabled the postman to get out of the vehicle straight onto the pavement to deliver the letters so you can blame the Germans for inventing health and safety.
As there were not that many people who wanted a used, right hand drive vehicle on the continent John’s first very low bid was accepted. He told me that it was the most reliable car that he ever owned and apart from it being canary yellow and having a bugle painted on the side it was a bargain.
As National Service finished about 1960 I joined the forces much later but I can still remember some of the stories that used to float about. One of them involved how a British Army Major called Ivan Hurst and an R.A.F. officer called Wing Commander ■■■■ Berryman had got the Volkswagen factory back on it’s feet again. I heard back in the sixties about them getting the bombed out factory back into production by using, displaced persons, refugees and even some of the foreign slave labour who had worked there under the ■■■■’s. In return for a days labour they were paid two hot meals, a roof over their heads with somewhere to sleep, a pair of overalls and a pair of boots. I found it hard to believe at the time that people were actually queuing up to get a job there in 1945.
Another story I heard was that the Americans and the Russians were going to claim the factory but after they saw it they didn’t want it. The French were very interested in it so to put them off Berryman took them in a Volkswagen floating car for a ride on the Kiel Canal. He then took out the bung, the car sank and by the time the French officials had got dried off there was no time to see the factory and they said that The British could have it.
Lord Roots was sent out from the U.K. for his opinion as to taking over the factory and he said that the car was ugly looking and that there was no future in a rear engine car. He also added that anybody who thought that car was any good must be mad but Ivan Hurst decided to carry on.
It’s funny that because in the sixties I remember working on a British rear engine car called The Hillman Imp which was produced by, The Roots Group.
Aren’t these computers thingies great, you can now check out some of those stories on the internet to see if there was any truth in those rumours all those years ago.
volkswagenag.com/content/vwc … +their.pdf
I might just add that after a Perfect Day, we ended up in the Lowenbrau Beer Keller drinking steins of German beer and listening to an Oom Pah band until the early hours of the morning. 
Regards Steve.
Great anecdotes mushroomman. You certainly have quite some memory. Very interesting. I didn’t go through Helmstedt till mid to late 70’s and then it was to Poland never Berlin but I always found the security situation very thorough.
On the Sunday morning we were up early, after a shower and some breakfast we put on our best uniforms and made our way to the guardroom accompanied by a huge hangover. This was the arranged meeting place to board the R.A.F. Mercedes bus which would be taking us on our morning trip into East Berlin. After world war two had finished Germany had to repay The Allies millions of pounds in reparations and some of this was in the form of motor vehicles which went to the British military in Europe. When I first went to Germany most of the vehicles consisted of Volkswagens, Opal Kadetts, Mercedes Benz buses, Magirus Deutz, Fauns and Ford Koln trucks, along with some A.E.C. Matadors, Leyland Hippo’s and Standard Vanguards. By the end of the 60’s all these had been replaced by Bedfords, Landrovers, A.E.C’s. Morris Minis, Morris J2’s and Austin 1800’s etc.
I have searched all over the place trying to find a photo of a Ford Koln truck to no avail as that was the first left hand drive vehicle that I ever drove. One thing that I clearly remember was that you could start a Maggie Deutz with a four inch nail if you didn’t have a key.
Anyway, back at Gatow we arrived at the bus at 9 a.m. and we were met by an R.A.F. linguistics officer who checked all our I.D. cards and crossed our names off on list that he had on a clip board. There were about 20 of us on the 39 seater coach some of who were new arrivals and hadn’t even been off the base yet. The officer gave us a briefing about keeping our cameras out of view, he told us not to take any photos at the border, of any Warsaw Pact personnel or of any military or police vehicles. While we were in the East we were told to take pictures discreetly and to try and not to upset or offend anybody. There was also a good chance that our bus was going to be followed so we were advised not to wonder off alone and if we were approached by anybody and asked to buy anything on the Black Market or to exchange any money we just had to walk away. We were told that most places would accept West German Marks on a one to one basis when the official exchange rate was about four East Marks to one West Mark and that we would probably get the change back in East Marks. You were not allowed to take East Marks back in to The West but they might let you keep a couple of coins as a souvenir.
We drove through West Berlin from The British Sector into The American Sector and the air force linguistics officer gave us a good running commentary and pointed out a lot of interesting places. We went down Frederick Strasse and stopped at Checkpoint Charlie where a steel barrier blocked the road and there appeared to be quite a large contingent of American G.I.'s standing around. For some reason (I am not absolutely sure) but I seem to remember a British Military policeman getting on the bus and doing a head count. The officer gave him a copy of the list on his clipboard with all our details on it, the policeman got off the bus and the barrier was lifted.
I remember seeing a large sign saying “Checkpoint Charlie. You Are Now Leaving The American Sector”.
It seemed a lot different than it was 11 years earlier.
youtube.com/watch?v=-pUmfKX3C04
We drove through the barrier for about 50 yards and stopped at a red traffic light for a couple of minutes before it changed to green. The driver drove very slowly through a concrete chicane where there were anti tank Dragons Teeth concrete blocks scattered all over the place. Another barrier which was made out of a section of R.S.J. or a reinforced steel joist was pushed to one side and closed behind us as we passed through it by a couple of East German soldiers and looking around there seemed to be dozens of soldiers all over the place staring at us. A large red Soviet Union flag with the hammer and sickle symbol was flying along side a much smaller East German flag, it appeared to be a statement to say The Russians are here. There appeared to be more Russian troops than there were East German soldiers, most of them were carrying A.K.47’s, a lot of them were carrying side arms and some of them were watching us through binoculars. High barbed wire fences seemed to be all over the place along with concrete walls and there were several watch towers. It felt similar to the feeling that I had at Helmstedt but we seemed more enclosed in, even though we were sitting inside a bus the atmosphere certainly felt uncomfortable.
Our officer got off the bus and saluted a Russian officer who appeared to be waiting for us, he gave him a copy of one of the sheets of paper on his clipboard. Two Russians boarded the bus, we had been told to hold up our I.D. cards and one of the Russians checked about four of us. The other one did a head count, they both got off the bus and spoke with our officer for a couple of minutes and after another exchange of salutes our officer got back on the bus and closed the door. A barrier ahead of us was lifted up and our driver pulled forward towards it, all the time you could see the East German and the Russians keeping a close eye on us.
We drove around for about an hour, all the time the officer was showing us places of interest, telling us something of the history of Berlin at the end of the second world war and about the construction of The Berlin Wall. The difference between the West and the East was not just about 50 yards it was about twenty years. The streets were mainly cobbled, there were still lots of buildings that were bomb damaged and there was certainly a lack of private cars. Most of the vehicles belonged to the army or the police and all the shops looked empty. There were not that many advertising signs but there were a lot of posters of happy, healthy smiling faces looking up towards the sky at a big red star and the word Socialismus or something similar. Even though it was a sunny Sunday morning and all the people were walking around in what appeared to be their Sunday best clothes the styles of the clothing looked like something from the late fifties. It was evident that East Germany hadn’t had much investment since the end of the war and the people didn’t look as happy as their German cousins in the West.
We stopped at an area that looked more like a small field with a couple of trees and few bushes scattered around it and we were told that this was where Hitler’s Bunker used to be.
I was quite disappointed really as there was nothing much of interest to see as The Russians had blown the place up and raised it to the ground just after the war. We were told that we could have a fifteen minute walk around to take some photos and to stretch our legs. All that draught beer that we had consumed in The Lowenbrau Beer Keller the night before was taking it’s toll on my weak bladder so I decided to sneak away and relive myself behind a small bush not too far away. I bet that it was something that many British people thought about and wanted to do during the war and so it felt quite satisfying, ■■■■■■■ on Hitler’s Bunker. I was surprised when I looked on Google to see that they had built flats on the site and all that is left now are a couple of the trees.
youtube.com/watch?v=L9WbOEWWBmg
We left the site of Hitler’s Bunker and went to a place called Treptow Park I think it was, where there was a Russian monument to all the Russians who died fighting The Germans in the second world war. We got out of the coach for another walk around and I remember that there were a group of Russians soldiers who were on ceremonial duty and one of our group took a photo of them while they were changing the guard. A German civilian came over and started arguing with the guy who took the photo but it didn’t sound like he was speaking German. Immediately our air force officer came over and joined in the conservation but it sounded to me that they were speaking Russian. The civilian showed him an I.D. card and then looked apologetic and after excusing himself to the guy who had taken the photo he walked away. The officer told him that they had permission to take photos of the monument, people had taken photos before and there had never been any trouble but he said that he would mention it to The Russians when we got back to the border.
We drove around through Potsdam and then headed back towards Checkpoint Charlie as the time was coming up to midday and I think that by then we were all feeling quite hungry. When we arrived at the East German side of the border we drove up to the buildings where we stopped at the barrier and the officer got off, saluted two Russian officers and once again gave them a piece of paper off his clipboard. We all had to show our I.D. cards but this time everybody was individually checked along with their I.D. card number to see if they were on the list. As I looked outside I noticed that there were a couple of East German soldiers in dirty overalls each with a torch. One of them crawled along underneath the bus and came out on the other side. The other one had a mirror on a pair of wheels which he pushed underneath the bus in a couple of places I suppose to see if anybody was hiding there.
After about fifteen minutes we were allowed to carry on and I think that we all felt relived when we reached Checkpoint Charlie and headed back towards R.A.F. Gatow.
Hi Mushy
That was a very interesting read, it brought memories flooding back from both my TIR days transiting DDR and my childhood visits to Berlin during the 60’s, 70’ and as a young man in the 80’s. My mum was a Berliner, she came to London after the war and became an SRN. She met my dad when she was asigned to look after him after he got back from Malaya where he was shot in the back and transferred by troop ship via Aden to Oldchurch Hospital in Romford where my mum treated him. After some time they were married and she became a British Citizen (Alien) We would spend Christmas and Summer holidays at my Aunts house in West Berlin and my mum,aunt and I would visit our relatives in East Berlin on may occasions. My Aunt could only enter East Berlin through Grenz Uebergang Friederich Strasse at the station and my mum and I had to use Checkpoint Charlie. Soon after the wall came down, in the winter, I remember doing donuts in my BMW the carpark where the DDR Customs houses were. 
Last year I drove to Berlin from Frankfurt and we stopped at what was the old Eisenach Border Crossing into DDR. I told my wife and children all about when we used to use this border and what it was like.
And then there were the West German borders with Czech. I personally used Furth im Wald/Folmava most of the time. Upon entering Czech it was like something out of a Bond film. Very serious, strict cabin and trailer controls and very quiet. Who else remembers it ?
Best regards to all.
GS
Another very interesting read. Many thanks mushroomman.
Hi Sandway and D.B.P. that was my only trip into Berlin its self, most of my other journeys on The Berlin Ring Road were either going on to Poland or heading towards Czechoslovakia. For a while we used The Prinzline Ferries going from Harwich into Hamburg and we would use the border at Ratzeburg into East Germany.
Regards Steve.
Hi Gavin, I really enjoyed reading how your Mum met your Dad so thanks for sharing that with us. And as it happens quite often, somebody else’s tales sometime remind someone of another travelling memory from years ago and your Mum has just reminded me of a lovely Berliner I used to know called Elenore.
I was working as an apprentice mechanic back in 1966 near Manchester when one day a red and white Ford Consul convertible pulled up outside. Elenore got out and asked my boss if he could fit a radio in her car which she had just bought second hand. The car had a twelve months M.O.T. lots of chrome and red leatherette seats, along with a red convertible roof. It had (I think) three forward column change gears with a big front bench seat which could sit three people comfortably. Elenore had been born in Berlin and had married a British Squaddie who was doing his National Service in Berlin in about 1950, they had three kids, the eldest was a girl who was fifteen. Elenore had not seen her family for 16 years and as her husband said that he would never go back to Germany she had decided to buy the car and drive the kids to see their grand parents.
I always thought that it was a very gutsy thing for a women to do back then, to drive from Manchester to Berlin with three young kids and as you probably know a lot of the autobahns were still cobbled and going through Brussels, which was all cobbles was a nightmare.
When she reached Berlin the Ford Consul had to have two new front springs and when she got back to the U.K. we had to fit all new brakes.
It’s strange isn’t it, sometimes with things that happened years ago you can remember it like it was yesterday, other things that happened about the same time then you just haven’t got a clue.
The first time that I used Eisenach I had tipped in Krakow in Poland and my boss told me to go to Ziess in Jena, East Germany for a load of discs. 
Compact discs hadn’t been invented then so I thought that I was picking up a load of brakes or something. I didn’t know it then but Carl Ziess of Jena made some of the finest glass in the world and the load that I was collecting were boxes of lenses I was told for astronomy telescopes and microscopes. It wasn’t even half a load and when I sent a telex to ask where my next pick up was, I was told to go straight to Dover. The value of the load was worth thousands of dollars and I heard later that we had been paid as a full load.
Now I have been racking my brain cell out for the last two hours thinking where did I take that load to and I haven’t got a clue. 
The simplest kind of security I can recall from the 1970’s especially down in Cockney land was the habit of placing the rolled up sheets off a flat trailer in front of the axles then pulling forward and placing the wheels onto them ! magic Cheers Bewick.
Errr didn’t the load get wet Dennis.
mushroomman:
Errr didn’t the load get wet Dennis.
Oh aye! silly me ! I forgot to say that the trailer was empty 
But the state and quality of Cockney sheets in general was always very poor! 
Bewick.
Dennis, I do remember seeing a bloke once on Shepherds Bush lorry park putting his sheets in the cab before he set off to his digs. You couldn’t drive over your sheets in the winter on Shepherds Bush as there was always more mud there than The Somme.
And I suppose that this can be classed as “Security Measures Back In The Day”. An old lad told me that he stayed in digs once and was advised to put two of the legs of the bed inside his boots, so they didn’t walk off during the night.
Regards Steve.
East India Dock, late 70’s - early 80’s
Man with shotgun and two Rottweilers that chewed house bricks (London or Staffordshire Red) living in caravan near yard gate, shunter by day, watchman by night…!!
Didn’t matter what the sheets looked like because they “were always poor” , so we just nicked some Norverners sheets that were always nice and sharp with pretty sign writing, then black them out and turn them inside out… especially if they were from Milnethorpe and beyond…
Roll em up and rest the front wheel on them so that they couldnt take them back…!! They never had the bottle to accuse anyone of stealing their sheets…Ha Ha.
Hi Mushy
Do you remember when you got to Hermsdorfer Kreuz there was a bridge and it advertised Zeiss Precision Lenses for all to see in great big letters.
Hi Gavin, no I can’t remember seeing any signs for Zeiss Precision Lenses and before you say anything else, I do
go to Specsavers.
What I didn’t mention on our trip to Berlin was that on the Friday morning on our way back, we reported to the British Military Police at Checkpoint Bravo who booked us out and we proceeded past the American barrier and drove to the East German checkpoint, where we were met by a Russian officer. He spoke very good English, he took our travel docs off us and passed them to the window where “The Hand” took them off him. We stood by the car for about five minutes and then he was called back to the window where somebody was pointing to something on our docs. He came across to us and said that we had a problem, our docs had expired at midnight. We couldn’t understand how we had got the date wrong as we had booked the campsite for seven nights and as we had arrived on the eighth we presumed that we were coming back on the fifteenth.
I must say that Russian gulags and Siberian salt mines probably crossed my mind but the Russian officer just said that we must turn around and go back. He walked over to the barrier as I drove behind him very slowly and after he had a word with the soldiers they lifted up the barrier, he saluted us and we drove back through the American checkpoint and parked up outside the British R.M.P. office. I must admit that by this time we were panicking, it had taken us weeks to get our Berlin Travel Document and we had to be back in work at 8 a.m. on the Monday morning or we could of been charged as absent without leave.
The corporal from the R.M.P. looked very surprised to see us as I said “you are not going to believe this”. After I had explained what had happened he said that it was his fault for not checking the expiry date properly. I admitted that I should of checked it more carefully and I asked him what can we do about it. He said that I will have to make you out a new one and with that he opened up a large safe and took out an ink pad, a rubber stamp and a sheet of paper. He put the sheet of paper into a type writer and started typing away filling in our details and when he had finished he endorsed it with the signature of The British Officer Commanding The Berlin Garrison that was on the rubber stamp. He gave us the new document which had that days date on it and said have a safe trip and keep an eye out for any unusual military activity. We said good bye and drove over towards the American barrier, they just lifted it up and waved us through. We passed under a bridge that said “You Are Now Leaving The American Sector” and drove up to the East German barrier which they lifted up after a couple of minutes. The same Russian officer came across, checked the new documents and then passed it through the darkened glass window. After a few minutes he returned our B.T.D. and we were on our way back down The Berlin Corridor heading West.
There was nothing unusual that I can remember at the moment that happened on the way back down to Helmstedt except that when we arrived at the border it took much longer exiting the D.D.R. We followed the lane that said “Allied Forces Only” and we were met once again by a Russian officer and an East German officer. There were certainly a lot more soldiers and policemen around. There seemed to be more watch towers and barriers and it looked like it was compulsory that every vehicle had to be sniffed out by an Alsatian dog wearing a muzzle. When we passed the last barrier we both breathed a sigh of relief as we stopped out side the R.M.P. office at Checkpoint Alpha.
We gave the military policeman our B.T.D. and he asked us if we had seen anything unusual on our trip down from Berlin as he entered our details into a log book. He said that’s it, you can go now, so I asked him if I could have our B.T.D. document back as a souvenir. He said that he had to keep it but I got the impression that he was just being awkward. What will happen to it now I asked. Oh we will probably keep it on file for a couple of years and then it will go to the incinerator, he said.
It never crossed my mind back then that over forty years later some people would never know what a Berlin Travel Document looked like.
So I am quite glad that I kept the original copy which had expired.
It’s amazing what memories an old piece of paper at the bottom of an old shoebox can bring.
Regards Steve.
Great conclusion to the story Mushy.
What a nice piece of memorabilia too, fancy still having that after all these years. Well done Sir.
Wasn’t it a strange and eerie feeling upon crossing no-mans land, turning your headlights off to sidelights only and slowing right down ready for the big Iron Girder barrier to slowly open wide…and then drive up to the passport control and wait for “the hand”!!. it was mostly late at night for me when I got there at Eisenach so it had an even more sinister feel about it. Pull up at the inspection line and wait to be called forward on to the bay. All this and hardly a word spoken by the East German Guard. “TIR Carnet bitte” and off he went with the papers and then the wait !
It was all so long ago.
I remember as a child at Check Point Charlie, the guards took my Mickey Mouse comic book off me, stating that this was “verboten”. I was only about 8yrs old and already handing over Mickey Mouse paperwork in the Commie Bloc.
Best regards
GS