Where are you off to?” asked the woman beside me, as we waited for our flights to be called. “Berlin,” she said. “Berlin! Ooh, that’s nice”.

Ooh, that’s nice! Off to Berlin, where the Kaiser swaggered, where Hitler strutted, where the malignant Stasi skulked! And as a matter of fact, when a couple of hours later I stepped into the city that had haunted and disturbed me all my adult life, really rather nice it was.