A British Army Ferret scout car and a schoolboy in West Germany, August 1961

Photograph, Central Office of Information, 1861.

The creation of the Berlin Wall made it much harder for 12-year old schoolboy, Erwin Schabe, to go to school as his journey was blocked by East German police. Erwin lived in Eiskeller, a West German enclave about half a mile north-west of the British Zone in West Berlin, and joined to it by a narrow track. Each day, Erwin cycled the four miles to school down this track. After difficulties with the East German police, the British Army supplied a daily escort, which stopped the East German police harassing him.

From a collection of 1536 photographs taken by Central Office of Information of the regiments and corps of British Army, 1950 (c)-1969 (c).