THEY were young and didn't think too much about it.

It was a chance to travel, to meet new people, to represent Scotland on the world stage and challenge themselves in their sport.

Of course, it was only later that they truly appreciated the magnitude of it all.

It was 1961, and a group of Scottish hockey players were venturing behind the newly-erected Berlin Wall.

Such was the nature of their sporting trip, it recently featured in the BBC documentary Cold War Hockey.

Among the players was the Wee County's Kit Gow, nee Smith, who was just 22 years old at the time.

She, along with the Scotland international women's hockey team, ventured across Europe to play West Germany.

While that alone would be an occasion to remember – one surely to look back on fondly for all Scots concerned – the trip would soon take on added significance.

Kit told the Advertiser: “We were just so delighted to be going away on a trip to Berlin.

“We flew from Edinburgh to Hanover, we got on a coach with the German team and we had to travel through East Germany and go through Checkpoint Charlie to get into West Berlin – that was quite an eye-opener for us.”

Checkpoint C was the best-known crossing point in a city divided and remains a popular attraction today.

“Seeing all these young men in their long, grey coats with their rifles, bayonets – there were just young men who were along the wall,” Kit reminisced.

“The wall had gone up about two weeks before and there were still loads of flowers and wreaths where people had been trying to swim over the River Spree and had been shot."

It was a sobering thought for the team and indeed, it is believed more than 100,000 citizens tried to escape between 1961 and 1988.

Kit added: “A lot of what was done was done in German and apparently this man had said that the Scottish team had proved that West Berlin was open for visitors and that we had contributed to world peace."

The match went ahead at the 1936 Olympic Hockey Stadium and came at a tense geopolitical time.

Indeed, it is understood English hockey authorities had turned down the offer to play there before Scotland was invited.

The trip into West Berlin did not go without hiccups, however.

Security was tight and details had to be provided in advance, but the team manager was not included as she was a late addition to the party due to someone else having to pull out.

“When we got to the checkpoint she was taken away and interrogated for about an hour – we didn't know what was happening to her," Kit said.

“They could have thought she was a spy or carrying information.

“It's more scary now to think about it.”

The party's coach was also boarded by armed guards with the team told to sit still and silently while checks were carried out.

Kit added: “I didn't feel that anything bad was going to happen to us, but then that's just being a bit naïve, isn't it?

“We were thrilled to meet these German people, playing against them, having an international match.

“It was sport, it wasn't politics [for us] but of course now you realise the politics were there all the time.”

The team spent a few days in West Berlin on what could be called, looking back, a pseudo-diplomatic mission.

Kit also remembers a fairground near the wall, which stood out to her.

She explained: “People in West Berlin went up on the roller-coaster to kind of wave to people on the other side of the river.

“They said it was to show that they were still thinking of them.”

The West Germans were great hosts, Kit saying members of the team were “charming” and “lovely”.

Kit, who played centre-half at the time, also recalled a gala dinner which was held for both teams and where she got on well with her counterpart Bärbel Effinger.

She continued: “Ten years later she was playing a full-back and I was playing a full-back for Scotland when we played in the World Tournament in New Zealand – what are the chances of that?”

Kit was lucky to see the world with the Scottish team then, a tale she told in the Advertiser in 1971.

Cold War Hockey is available to view on BBC iPlayer.