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Glasgow Live
Glasgow Live
National
David McLean

When two Glasgow art students painted 80s icon 'Mr Happy' on the Berlin Wall

In the late 1980s two city art students set out to tell the world that Glasgow's miles better using the most famous urban canvas of them all.

Prior to the Berlin Wall's historic fall in November 1989, vast stretches of the western side of the notorious Cold War divide were almost entirely covered in graffiti, with people from all over the world helping to create a colourful patchwork of different designs that were often politically-charged.

Added rather unexpectedly to this vibrant mix within metres of an East German watchtower at Checkpoint Charlie was Glasgow City Council's 'Mr Happy' mascot, the ever-joyous face of the Glasgow's Miles Better campaign.

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