Yesterday's Times carried a long and interesting obituary of Gail Halvorsen who has died at the age of 101. His exploits during the Berlin Airlift are the stuff of legend but I didn't realise he had been the base commander at Tempelhof in the 1970s. Apparently he was a life-long teetotaller and found the need for the base commander to host or attend innumerable alcohol-fuelled social events a bit of a challenge! After he left the military he helped set up a student exchange programme between Berlin and Utah and kept up his connections with Berlin almost to the end of his life.
He told the Washington Post "Through the clouds came a little parachute with a fresh piece of chocolate. It was a symbol of hope that somebody out there realised you were under siege. I think hope is the thing, not the candy bar. It was the hope".