Daniel Gray

Our plane dipped gently down over Bavaria, its ribbon strip farmers’ fields growing larger by the second. “Welcome to Munich” offered the flight attendant – words of promise and magnitude, because there is something so momentous, so substantial about that city’s name.

A SMILE trickles across Joe Brandie’s face, as he recounts a tale he has told many times. “They hired a hearse and put all the whisky into the coffin," says the 86-year-old. "When they passed Customs and Excise, they took off their bunnets and got straight through.”