Joanna Campbell Quotes & Sayings

45,000 sections of reinforced concrete - three tons each.
Nearly 300 watchtowers.
Over 250 dog runs.
Twenty bunkers.
Sixty five miles of anti-vehicle trenches - signal wire, barbed wire, beds of nails.
Over 11,000 armed guards.
A death strip of sand, well-raked to reveal footprints.
200 ordinary people shot dead following attempts to escape the communist regime.
96 miles of concrete wall.

Not your typical holiday destination.

JF Kennedy said the Berlin Wall was a better option than a war. In TDTL, the Anglo-German Bishop family from the pebbledashed English suburb of Oaking argue about this - among other - notions while driving to Cold War Berlin, through all the border checks, with a plan to visit both sides of it. — Joanna Campbell

A softly-spoken German man points to a window on the third floor of a tall building and says, "My grandfather is sitting in that room."
Planting his feet wide apart, the man begins to wave, his arm sweeping through the air in a huge arc. We all step back to give him enough room.If I let my vision swim out of focus, this seems like an ordinary day with an ordinary man greeting someone he loves across the street.
"I'm not expecting to see him again," he says. But he waves on and on, hoping his grandfather has spotted him.
The Englishmen look away. — Joanna Campbell

Here we go then," Dad says. "Motoring towards our dreams, Bridge."
"You shouldn't follow dreams," Grandma announces.
"Why?" I ask her.
"Because it's a road paved with disappointments, that's why. People should get on with what they've blinking well got at home."
"You can't tell people what their dreams are meant to be."
"I can. But they never listen, do they? — Joanna Campbell

He promised me Berlin," Mum says. "It will kill him if we do not arrive."
"It'd take more than that to kill my Roy. Your lot didn't manage it, did they?"
"But what would happen if the brakes fail, Nell?" Mum dabs at her damp forehead with the hem of her cardigan. "Oh, I do hope Roy can take me home."
"He won't."
"Oh, Nell, can you not let me dream?"
"If hopes and dreams were big ice-creams, the world would be right sticky. Now come on, Bridge. Pull yourself together. Jesus wept, look at the state of you. You're as much use as a knitted knife. — Joanna Campbell