L'Amore Mio

It didn't take long for me to find somewhere where I could get a regular fix of Italian. It was an Italian restaurant on a lay-by on the Gatower Straße and it was called L'Amore Mio. It was a nice little place and the food was good.

My name and my Italian was enough to persuade the two fellas who owned the place that I was a friend. Every time I walked into the place they made a fuss of me in the way that Italian restaurateurs do and I was flattered. Delighted with my apparently elevated status in the establishment.

I don't remember the names of the two lads although I must have known them at the time. They told me that if I ever wanted a job all I had to do was ask. So I asked one day in 1987 after I'd left the RAF and moved in with civvy friends in Reinickendorf in the North of West Berlin.

The plan had been that I was going to be a link between the restaurant and their guests from RAF Gatow. They had said that they wanted me behind the bar where I was visible and where I could talk to their British customers. They put me in the kitchen. Washing up. To add insult to injury they paid me DM5 an hour. Not even £2. I picked up my pay - such as it was - and left after a few days.

I did go back once or twice afterwards but the relationship didn't survive the job offer. Lesson? Business always comes before pleasure.