'It was absolutely fantastic - one of the best things to ever happen' Huddersfield woman toasts anniversary of the day her childhood city was reunited.

Byline: BARRY GIBSON

MARIANNE Takacs raised a glass last night to toast the 20th anniversary of her city's reunification.

The 67-year-old from Salendine Nook grew up in Berlin and remembers looking on in horror as a wall was built through the heart of her city.

"The wall was built almost overnight, the trains were stopped, there was total chaos," she said.

"I was horrified when I first saw the wall."

Marianne grew up in Wilmersdorf in the American sector of Berlin, just 10 minutes' walk from the communist East of the city.

Her earliest memory is of US planes flying desperately-needed food into West Berlin during the Soviet blockade of 1948-49.

Marianne said: "As the planes came into land with food and supplies, they would drop sweets on tiny parachutes.

"As kids of course, we loved getting them."

But she said life in post-war Berlin was harsh: "There were ruins everywhere, my brother Michael and I used to play in the rubble piles."

She remembers the 1950s, when residents crossed freely between the two sides of the city.

She added: "We used to go shopping in the East because things were much cheaper there."

When the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, Marianne was working for a plastics company which employed people from both sides of the city.

She said: "There were 50 people in the factory, half of them from the East.

"They couldn't come across to work anymore.

"I was working on reception so I took their calls, they needed to get the money they were owed.

"We sent them parcels of coffee and tea and sweets for their children for a good year afterwards."

Marianne decided to leave Berlin a few months after the wall was built, saying she couldn't see the situation getting any better."

She moved to England, working as an au pair in Kirkburton, looking after Bob and Pat Bletcher's children Vivienne and Nigel.

In 1962 she started an English course at Huddersfield Polytechnic and met her future husband George Takacs, a naturalised Hungarian.

The couple were married at Huddersfield Register Office in 1963 and have two daughters Marika and Andrea.

Marianne and her family settled in Grasmere Road, near Greenhead Park, and she went to work as a bilingual secretary for Gledhill Brothers in Lockwood.

Marianne returned to Berlin many times to visit family.

She said: "I was in the city in 1963 when President Kennedy visited and I saw his motorcade - I thought he was wonderful.

"By the 1970s, I wouldn't say things were normal, but people had adjusted. However, people were still being shot trying to cross into the West.

"People tried to swim across the Wannsee lake, so it was heavily patrolled. If you were in a sailing boat from the West which was blown over to the Eastern side, you were taken prisoner.

"The Russian fighter planes would fly across West Berlin airspace to create sonic booms which smashed people's windows. They were just intimidating when they could."

But on November 9, 1989, all this came to an end when the Berlin Wall was torn down.

Marianne remembers the day well, saying: "My brother called me from Frankfurt and told me to put on the TV. It was absolutely fantastic to watch, it was one of the best things to ever happen.

"My mother, who died in 1979, always said she wouldn't live to see it."

But Marianne, who now lives in Salendine Nook, did not return to the reunited Berlin until last year.

"I didn't go for so long because of the sad memories I have. But when I went with my daughter Marika last year we had such a great time.

"Being able to see the Brandenburg Gate with no more wall was tremendous.

It was a rush of emotion."

Marianne is the long-serving secretary of Huddersfield German Circle, which held a committee meeting in Fixby last night.

She said: "I think we will have a drink to mark the anniversary."

CAPTION(S):

BERLIN MEMORIES: Marianne is pictured (left) with her brother Michael, when they were aged about 2 and 4 A PIECE OF HISTORY: Marianne Takacs (above) with a piece of the Berlin Wall and (inset) aged two, pictured outside her home in Berlin REUNITED: Germans from East and West stand and sit on the Berlin Wall a day after the wall was broken through in November 2009