The queen returns to her isle of happy memories

On the morning of May 3, 1954 - over 50 years ago - I stood on the bridge of the cruiser HMS Glasgow, the flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet, with the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Lord Mountbatten, as the warships, in two lines, were approaching the royal yacht Britannia some 200 miles east of Malta, closing up on an opposite course.

She had left Tobruk the previous day with aboard Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, who had been joined at the Libyan port by their children, Prince Charles and Princess Anne, after a short stay at Malta, on their first overseas trip.

The royal couple were on the penultimate leg of the Commonwealth tour of what was then described as the British family of nations, undertaken shortly after the queen had been crowned at Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953. They had left Britain on November 23, 1953 and were due to return home on May 10, 1954, having covered over 50,000 miles by land, sea and air.

I was reporting the encounter at sea for The Times of Malta and I was also representing the British United Press. My story would be in time for the London evening papers and the morning editions of newspapers and bulletins around the globe.

So after months of front-page stories of the many welcomes given to the queen as she hopped from one country to another, my report had to be particularly special to attract interest. Having as a journalist followed her almost daily during her long stays in Malta as princess and naval wife between November 1949 and April 1951, I wrote the opening sentence of a story no one else could write:

"The Mediterranean Fleet steamed in salute past the royal yacht Britannia this afternoon as the Commonwealth tour nears its end and the queen returns to her isle of happy memories...."

Today, half a century later, I can still write that Her Majesty will be returning to her isle of happy memories. The world may have changed since then and many of the countries of which she was queen are independent states - but the links remain and as head of the Commonwealth she will on Friday preside over the opening of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, in Valletta.

Her Majesty first came to live in Malta as a naval wife on November 20, 1949, her joy caught in the photograph that Frank Attard took on her arrival at Luqa airport. She arrived for the second anniversary of her wedding to Lt Philip Mountbatten, then created Duke of Edinburgh, and six days after the first birthday of Prince Charles. It was the first time that an heir to the British throne had gone to live in any part of the Commonwealth.

They lived informally in Malta as a young married couple on three successive occasions and the princess celebrated her 24th birthday in Malta on April 21, 1950.

Frank and I went to Villa Guardamangia to take the photographs for the Press Association to distribute to the British and world media and the princess asked where we would like them to stand.

I suggested they pose in front of typical Maltese window shutters, another with her seated on a hard wooden bench with the duke behind her, another picking oranges from the garden...

"Haven't you had enough," Prince Philip remarked at one stage with some anger, and prepared to walk away. The princess turned on him and said, with a smile, "Now, Philip, they are only doing their job. Now that you have married me, you will have to lump it!"

We had also been let into a secret - she was expecting their second child and the announcement had not yet been made from Buckingham Palace, so we had to pose her as discreetly as possible. If one looks up the photographs we took then she is carrying a large handbag in front of her. Princess Anne was born on August 15, 1950.

Memories of those days crowd in one's mind and merge with time. The images of those carefree years have not faded after five decades:

The princess at Tignè Point taking photographs of the duke's ships, HMS Chequers and later HMS Magpie, leaving Marsamxetto.

Dancing at the Chequer's ship's company ball.

Playing party games at the Magpie Wives Club at Manoel Island.

Dancing a Scottish reel at the Phoenicia.

Touring hospitals (at the Blue Sisters she was caught in a lift which stalled), visiting children's homes, watching the duke play polo at the Marsa.

Shopping in Valletta and Sliema.

Picnicking at Comino.

Driving round the countryside (when on one occasion she had to back the car after a countryman on a donkey cart plodding along a narrow stone-wall lane at Mgarr refused to give way).

Attending film shows at public cinemas (so that the manager of the Warner at Qormi could not decide whether to ask them to pay or not). There were many such episodes. There were more formal occasions such as the unveiling of the War Memorial, in Floriana, first unveiled before the war but moved for the post-war planning of the entrance to the city (she will be laying a wreath at the foot of the cross at 4.40 p.m. today), and taking a look at the George Cross awarded to Malta in 1942 by her father, George VI, on display on the Palace Square on April 15, 1950.

When she returned at the end of the Commonwealth tour in 1954, she unveiled the Commonwealth Air Forces Memorial outside City Gate. In 1992 she presided over the dedication of the Siege Bell memorial at the Lower Barrakka, in Valletta.

The British tabloids, and at times the BBC, after the war assumed the mantle of divine right, which previously was the prerogative of royalty and often told - and still tell - the monarch what to do and how to run the family.

When the princess was in Malta she was criticised of neglecting her formal duties but the editors failed to understand that Malta was as much part of the realm as the grey towns and green undulating countryside of Britain and that she was carrying out more official engagements here than she would have done back home.

Again, when the queen was touring New Zealand in March 1970, the British press made a fuss of what was described as her first innovative walkabout - but she made her first walkabout along Kingsway (now Republic Street) in November 1967 when, after presenting the colours to the King's Own Malta Regiment on the Palace Square, Valletta, she told the Governor-General not to take the car but to walk among the cheering crowds to the next engagement at St John's Co-Cathedral. She will repeat her walkabout in "Kingsway" today at 4 p.m.

A couple of years back the queen attended a ceremony at Westminster Cathedral and the British media made a fuss that this was her first time at a purely Catholic event - which again was off the mark. Years earlier she had not only watched the Good Friday procession from the balcony of the offices of The Times of Malta in St Paul Street, Valletta, but had also been shown round the church of St Paul's Shipwreck on the eve of the parish feast in Valletta and had visited the cathedral at Mdina and other churches.

From Malta, she and Prince Philip flew to Rome on April 11, 1951 to an audience with Pope Pius XII.

Prince Philip represented Her Majesty at the Independence celebrations on September 21, 1964.

The links with the Royal Family became stronger with her assumption of the queenship of Malta, as the Maltese government, highly conscious of her love for the island, wished her to be the first monarch of an independent island.

She remained queen of Malta until December 1974 when the Labour government changed the Constitution to make the island a republic, while retaining membership of the Commonwealth.

The Prime Minister, Dom Mintoff, declared in Parliament: "The change to a republican system is in no way meant as a sign of disrespect to Her Majesty or the Royal Family... No other country has retained a foreign monarch as the head of state".

The Leader of the Opposition, George Borg Olivier, and five Nationalist members voted against the republican Constitution.

The queen's previous visits had mostly been during the premiership of Dr Borg Olivier, who had also been invited to her coronation. But the Prime Minister felt Malta had not been given the proper status when he was allocated a place with the colonies in the procession through the streets of London.

He threatened to boycott the ceremony. Mabel Strickland intervened with the queen who overruled her ministers and provided the horses for an extra carriage so that Dr and Mrs Borg Olivier rode with the heads of government of the self-governing Commonwealth countries.

In December 1950 Princess Margaret flew to Malta to join her sister and the official party welcoming her included Enrico Mizzi, who had become Prime Minister in September. He was not feeling well and his doctor, J. Zammit Maempel, had told him not to venture out. But Dr Mizzi went to the airport where, hatless and without a coat, he stood in line on the cold windswept airfield to greet the princess. He was taken ill on his return home. He told his doctor he had felt he had to go as a sign of respect to Princess Elizabeth. A few days later, on December 20, 1950 he died from a weak heart.

All these shared memories make the royal visit as much of a sentimental journey to the queen and Prince Philip as to the government and people of Malta.