To this day, I still have that postcard, as well as this very beautiful "Ansichtskarte" of the "Kohlmarkt" in my (c)old hometown Braunschweig which must've been taken around the time I left Germany. Or perhaps a little later because I can't remember having had that much colour in my life.
The one thing I will never forget is the renaissance building right at the end of the street, the so-called "Gewandhaus", in which in a solemn ceremony I graduated and was handed my "Kaufmannsgehilfenbrief".
The other building which I will never forget is "Störig am Kohlmarkt", a stationery shop which is hidden behind the tree on the left of the "Ansichtskarte". It was in this shop where, shortly after I had started my articled years at the tender age of 14, I was discussing with the very attentive but strangely merry sales staff the price of a "bookkeeper's nose" - click here. There are some things in life you never forget!
The stationery shop has been replaced by a bedding shop - which may serve as a fitting explanation of what's happened to "the land of poets and thinkers" - but the "landmark" of the old shop, a giant MONTBLANC fountain pen, has been preserved and is now under National Heritage. (I 'googled' "landmark" to find a more fitting synonym and was presented with "Landmarks" by Robert Macfarlane, a book about the power of language. Thank you, Google! You've come to know my tastes very well.)
The other thing I notice when I look at this sixty-year-old "Ansichtskarte" is the total absence of signwriting in the now all-pervasive 'Denglish' - click here - and the total absence of tattoos on the skin and no metal objects embedded in the lips and noses of the lovely ladies still wearing proper dresses instead of today's "shredded" jeans which, I'm told, cost more than the "undamaged" ones. Es war immer noch eine heile Welt!
P.S. I've just found another "Ansichtskarte" which would've been on sale when I was still living there. It's all in black-and-white - just as my life was then - and shows the "Kohlmarkt" before it became a pedestrian zone and the MONTBLANC fountain pen. Talking of spoiling a good story!
