We have, because of the kindness and consideration of the Maltese people, enjoyed our second holiday to St Paul's Bay. This story is a token of thanks and a reflection on "ships that pass in the night".

On our holiday we started to frequent a small friendly pub called The Shoebox, run by Ali and Sue, and while there we talked to many people including a German couple staying at a nearby hotel.

We talked of many things big and small; of water-beds and carpets and of your marvellous yellow buses, of families and of friends past and present, and your beautiful churches, religion and of faith. We were on holiday.

The evening sky darkened over St Paul's Bay and bearded motorcyclists roared passed. People met and laughed in the street outside and the atmosphere in the pub was warm and friendly. Of the German couple that we were talking to, the young man called Detmat, I believe, started telling us of a hobby they had started. Of every country they visited, or had visited on holiday, they would collect that country's flag. He went on to tell of how they had bought your Maltese flag and of mine, the George Cross, to add to their collection. When they returned home, they said, they would on occasion fly these flags and others of different nations from a small flag-pole in their garden.

I thought what a nice gesture that a country's flag should be flown over foreign soil, not as a symbol of domination brought about through conflict, but in friendship and in peace. I also remembered a short poem by Ho Chi Minh written I believe during the American Vietnam conflict that went something like the following:

Our country has a need for large flag wavers.
However, we cannot do without,
Small flag wavers.

Then the German's wife of the couple that we met, called Regina, reminisced of a time when she first visited England at the age of 19. She remembered standing on London Bridge, eyes sparkling, clutching a guide-book as we all have done especially in the innocence of our teenage years, asking as best she could a passing stranger while pointing to a famous building and wanting to know if it was the Big Ben. The stranger laughed at her inquiry and naïvety and rudely replied in an American accent, that it was not. She was hurt then and you could tell that this painful event still lingers in her memory.

Sadly, the time had come for us to leave the Shoebox Pub and all our holiday friends and then leave your friendly shores. I thought of your flag and of mine, proud symbols now of freedom and of democracy, flying over German soil, in a back-garden on a small pole, in friendship and in peace.

I also thought, as we went on our way, of an American on London Bridge, and hoped there was still time for his Stars and Stripes to fly alongside our flags in ships that pass in the night.