Malta - Independence to Republic

I AM currently preparing a series of 20 one-hour documentary programmes on Malta during the 1960s and 1970s covering the passage from colonialism to statehood and right up to the Republican Constitution question in 1974. These will be broadcast on national television, starting next month, on Mondays before the 8 o'clock news.

Over the past year I have interviewed on camera scores of persons from all walks of life for this project, but given the dearth of properly archived historical footage about those times, I would greatly appreciate and fully credit anyone possessing amateur recordings of anything happening between c. 1956 and c. 1976, captured clearly on film, which could help enliven my scripts.

This series is a challenging and unprecedented organic attempt at bringing to life, through the medium of television, as objectively as possible, what went on behind the scenes during some two decades which changed and determined the course of our nation's political and social history. It is an exercise in providing a readily accessible synthesis of collective memory beyond the covers of a book, which I believe we owe ourselves and future generations.

In a country where public television and archival records including photography have had such a tricky past, and where reading is not exactly a strong point of national culture, such an informed and visually demonstrable instruction in collective memory, or nationhood, has, for various reasons, remained lacking. Any illustrations, artefacts or other props would be welcome too.

I have long been convinced that there is a public thirst for serious and scarce TV productions of this kind (as there has been for well-researched books about the period) so I would like to thank in advance all those who choose to co-operate with me in this difficult but exciting endeavour.