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Cowdenbeath, Scotland - Twenty-five years ago the heavy thud of the Berlin Wall falling resonated around the world. The Cold War was over. There were parties and celebrations, laughter and tears of joy.

But among communist supporters in Western Europe, images of armed guards standing idly by as elated East Germans danced on the barricades were a source of consternation, not jubilation.

More than a thousand kilometres from the Brandenburg Gate, in the Scottish mining town of Cowdenbeath, Mary Doherty sat sobbing in front of the evening news on November 9, 1989. For decades she ran the weekly Socialist Sunday School.

"Her world was shattered," recalls veteran local communist Jackie Allan. "Everything was the Soviet Union, then it was gone."

A few kilometres away in Ballingry, a small hamlet of post-war suburban pebbledash terrace houses at the foot of green hills, councillor Willie Clarke remembers being "stunned" when the Berlin Wall fell.

"It was something you didn't see happening, and it happened so quickly. It took a long time to recover," says Clarke.

[Communism] caught your imagination, they were radical, wanted change, they were not prepared to accept things as they were.

- Willie Clarke, councillor

Standing in Cowdenbeath today, its quiet streets dotted with "to let" signs and bargain stores, it is hard to imagine that this was once a hotbed of communist agitation. In the 1920s, the red sandstone town hall - still the most impressive building on High Street - flew the Red Flag on the anniversary of the Russian revolution. At the time, the government in London feared that any left-wing insurrection in Britain would start in Cowdenbeath.

As late as 1973, communists won 12 council seats in Lochgelly and Cowdenbeath. Clarke was among the councillors elected that day. Remarkably, Clarke, now in his late 70s and having lost his left ear to cancer, is still a local councillor for Ballingry.

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UK communists and the fall of the Berlin Wall