The Current scholastic year (2004-5) is the hundredth for Stella Maris College, run by the De La Salle Brothers. The school opened with a staff of seven Brothers on September 15, 1904, at Villa Schinas, in Rudolph Street, Sliema, where it continued for 34 years till 1938.
That year, Stella Maris College was formally transferred to the new building at Gzira and the college is now celebrating the centenary of the first scholastic year. The school was so named because it was established in the parish of Stella Maris. Herewith a few personal thoughts and memories.
In 1904, the year started with 15 boys on the register, but only seven attended as the first group ('seven students for seven brothers'!) and when the new scholastic year started in Gzira on September 5, 1938, there were 171 boys.
The Gzira school was built when Villa Schinas had become too small to accommodate the increasing number of boys. The addition of my brother Antoine and myself was apparently the last straw, because after attending the school here in Sliema in 1937-1938, the school moved to Gzira for the next scholastic year.
From an overcrowded building, the Brothers found themselves with a relatively few students in the luxury of an airy, spacious building. The number of students was now considered small, and Br Augustine, then director, campaigned for more boys to be registered in the new school. He aimed for 300 boys and apparently decided that he could get them by hook or by crook.
I can say this because after a few days at the new school we were all assembled in the corridor (now a refectory) where he informed us that we had to pray for more boys to come to Stella Maris College. Then he turned to the statue of St Joseph near by, took away the lily staff from the saint's hand and instead suspended a white placard with the number 300 written on it, informing us that the staue would remain deprived of the staff until that number is reached.
The number was attained, but some time later the insatiable director again removed the flowery staff and hung a piece of metal rod in its place to force St Joseph to find some benefactor to remove heavy beams left over in the playground.
During the war, this statue survived a one-storey fall when a bomb damaged part of the school; this long-suffering statue now deservedly rests in the chapel.
Before we left Villa Schinas, my brother and I received our First Holy Communion alone, because having contracted measles we missed the proper occasion and Fr Edmondo Tabone, the school chaplain and a relative of ours, celebrated the occasion for us in the small school chapel. When we started at Gzira, we were among those in the first group to receive Confirmation in 1939.
First years at Gzira
Before the war the school was run more or less on the same lines as other schools directed by religious orders. Regimentation, rigidity, religion, Masses and prayers, punctuated by sporadic punishments, supported the week's routine. I always tried to be a good boy and actually was but, especially when in the class of one particular Brother, something always seemed to go wrong somewhere every day. Even just sitting quietly with folded arms could be a punishable offence.
During his Religion lessons first thing in the morning, my heart used to become progressively more hopeful as I listened to the flowery rhetoric on the exaltation of mercy, love, sympathy, forgiveness, tolerance and friendly relations with all. But once the Religion lessons were over, the dreaded 'take out your homework' brought fantasies to an abrupt end and real life business began, ensuring that I got enough hot ones with the stick, detentions, copies and other formative measures and attentions to last me a lifetime.
He even gave us a page of French translation from Charlin as homework for every day of the summer holidays which were thus spent in utter misery; at the time I never suspected that he could not possibly mark them all.
But through my course at Stella Maris College I also received many 'good marks', small, printed cards of different values which were supposed to be put in a large box hanging on a wall, having numbered slots allotted to the class students but somehow they were never added up; I still keep some just in case.
One of the Brothers even ventured to give weekly medals to deserving students. These medals were a nondescript assortment from some collection with coloured bands and silvery and golden metals. I received one of these medals three or four times and had to keep it pinned on my chest at school, take it home and return it next morning for recycling.
In our first year at Gzira I received a wax Bambin as a Christmas term prize followed by other prizes throughout the course. We had no school uniform and school badge to wear then. A lapel badge was made in 1947-48, almost when I had to leave school, but the uniform came many years later.
Just before the war, Br Anthony Darmanin set up a Meccano Club, and although I could not afford a construction set and could not join the club, I always liked handwork and models, and was fascinated by the exhibitions organised. Members of the club had a white uniform and cap and wore them on various occasions. The club continued to be active for some years through the 1940s.
There were fields on the sides and back of the school up towards the Blue Sisters and Sacred Heart buildings at the top of the hill. Br Joseph once brought together some of the younger classes facing uphill and invited us to throw stones at a tin can on top of a stick stuck in one of the higher fields. It was a ruse to clear the area of stones so that we could use it as playground. In these fields, I had my first encounters with nature and spotted and admired my first wild flowers, insects and other creatures of the countryside, later to become my lifelong interest.
On April 29, 1939, we were taken on private buses to Floriana where the Diocesan Eucharistic Congress was being held. Newspapers of the time report that some 24,000 schoolchildren attended together with large crowds. At school we had been preparing for this the fortnight before, parading four abreast in the playground to rehearse our eventual entry on to the Granaries. I cannot say I saw much except some clouds and the blue sky above, because taller people obstructed the view all around, but I did hear a background of speeches, prayers and hymns.
I would stand in one place with boredom tensions giving me a headache, but when the occasion was over we were all given a waxed carton of MMU milk and a flag; some of us got the papal flag, others the Maltese.
The whole thing was supposed to have been celebrated in 1938 to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1913 International Eucharistic Congress held in Malta, but because of ominous events in Europe it was postponed to 1939 and channelled into prayers for the deliverance of Malta from war; but someone up there was not listening.
The Brothers formed the main body of the teaching staff and there were very few lay teachers at the school in my time. I still remember the kindly Philip Sammut, who was my teacher in 1938-1939. He remained a familiar figure in my area at Sliema, walking to church every day until he died in 2001 at the age of 95.
I recall many of the Brothers, each with his particular character and peculiarities, but I would need a volume to write about them. I still greatly appreciate those of them who showed even the slightest interest in my progress and abilities, and after having been a teacher myselffor many years, I feel I must say from experience that the slightest sign of appreciation and approval that one receives from parents and teachers will steer and encourage youngsters to develop talents and self-esteem.
During the war
The war disrupted school, and Stella Maris staff was hosted by the Carmelites of St Julian's for a short time to accommodate some primary students as an emergency school, but in spite of the war, we were back at Gzira where an underground shelter had been constructed.
The groundfloor and playground of the school had been requisitioned by the army, but things went on fairly normally and we often went down into the shelter during air raids.
Papas Schirò of the Greek church of Valletta had fears for the icon of Our Lady of Damascus when his church was bombed, and the Brothers offered to keep it for him in their shelter; this is mentioned by the late Br Micheal in an article about the war which he wrote in Il-Mument of February 1, 1998.
On our way to school from Sliema, we used to walk through Viani Street, and in the fields below we could see camps and a gun together with a barrage balloon ready to be hoisted to obstruct dive bombers over the harbour area. Although too young to understand the intricacies of war, we still suffered psychologically from fear of bombs and the death of various friends and classmates.
Occasionally, I still remember and feel the loss of my 11-year old deskmate who was killed during a night bombing over Sliema in 1943; I still keep a cigarette card picture which he had once given me.
When in 1943 preparations were being made for the invasion of Sicily, we were surrounded by unusual activity of of heavy transport vehicles, tanks and armaments with troops from various countries marching through the streets, including Basutos.
From our classroom at the very top of the building we could see Manoel Island and Marsamxett Harbour with numerous vessels and invasion barges. Br Anthony was enthusiastic about it all and made us call out thrice the 'Hip Hip Hip Hooray!' from the open windows. He encouraged us to pay a sixpence (a lot for us then!) for a small lapel pin in the form of a V cut out from a piece of tin, painted with red, white and blue bands.
I can write an entire book on my schooldays, but I have here sketched only a few random thoughts. Since then, Stella Maris College has prospered and grown continuously, adapting to modern needs. School life for the present large student population is now easier and freer than that of 50 or 60 years ago.
The Brothers are no longer as numerous as they used to be and the school has to employ a good number of qualified lay teachers but the school atmosphere is still dominated by the original principles of the founder, St John Baptist De La Salle, to educate body and soul for life.