Hello again, guys.
I was 29 at the time and had been a captain on 60 Sqn for 2 years. The trip was in an Andover C1 XS597 which was not a modified Andover for the Hallmark operation. Funnily enough I had flown the "Lines" the previous month in a Pembroke. The aircraft had a seat fit for about 14, if I remember rightly. Since it had a ramp access all baggage was stowed in a netted baggage area just before the navigator station. The aircraft was normally used for aeromedical flights from Wildenrath via Gutersloh to Northolt and the odd passenger trip. That particular day we were tasked to take the Burgermeisters to Koln and remain there until the afternoon and return them to Wildenrath. It seemed we were in for a boring day sitting on the aircraft playing bridge. (Crew compliment was Capt, Copilot, Navigator and Loadmaster). I'm pretty sure the LM was WO Eddie East who went on to become the first RAF WO Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London. Look him up, he may still be there.
Anyway, I was called in to the handler's office for a phone call from my operations (no mobile phones then). I was told to prep the aircraft immediately for a VIP passenger and to take him directly to Templehof. I was not told who the passenger was, just that he and his entourage (4 in total, I think) had to get to Templehof asap. There was not a special call sign as that would have created attention we did not need as we flew the Berlin corridor. Just after we got airborne the LM came forward and announced that the passenger was Willy Brandt. I don't remember his wife being on board. Whilst we were enroute there were several attempts to divert the aircraft to RAF Gatow, presumably for the kudos of receiving Willy Brandt, but this was against my strict briefing to go to Templehof. On arrival we parked under the famous awning at Templehof and Willy was whisked away to the celebrations in the city centre. We remained all day in Berlin and returned him to Koln that night. I still have my piece of the Berlin Wall and an East German border guard's hat. The hat cost me a few dollars and he felt like a millionaire.
I was in Berlin a couple of months later and whilst enroute to the hotel I asked the taxi driver what he thought about the wall coming down. He said that he and a lot of other West Berliners would like to put it back up. They were overwhelmed by the vast numbers of poor East Berliners and East Germans that flooded in to the city and those people were POOR. The Deutscher Bank had always maintained that any East Germans that came to the west would be given DM100. They kept their promise and many East Germans believed they were rich beyond their wildest dreams. Stories abound of them walking in to BMW dealerships trying to buy a car with their DM100. They had no real concept of the value of items in the west.
Sorry that this is a long post but I hope it's interesting.