Spitfire pilots and a girl called Marija

Memories of Malta at war and life on the island came flooding back to an 83-year-old former Spitfire pilot as he stroked the jacket he used to wear while on duty.

"I was much thinner back then," Ron Hind said with a smile. He gently touched the ribbons decorating his jacket, unworn for years but very well preserved.

Mr Hind, of Watford, had donated his blue RAF jacket to the War Museum in July 1987. Earlier this week he went there to see it exhibited but was told that since the museum's aviation section is temporarily closed for maintenance the uniforms had been sent to the Malta Maritime Museum in Vittoriosa.

Two days later, Mr Hind and his wife Jennifer, who are on holiday in Malta, took a bus to Vittoriosa. The uniforms are in the process of being cleaned but Mr Hind's was found and brought for him to see.

"He would have been very upset if they had not found it. It has been an ambition of Ron's to come back and see his uniform," Mrs Hind said.

"It has made my day," he said.

A framed photo of a young Mr Hind in his RAF uniform, which will be exhibited next to the uniform, was also fetched. "Just look at how handsome he was," his wife exclaimed.

Mr Hind, a flight lieutenant, first came to Malta on HMS Welshman in June 1942 and left in December of the following year. In that time he was shot down twice, both times ending up in the sea.

"They thought I needed a bath," he joked.

More than six decades after leaving Malta he still remembers a phrase in Maltese - inhobbok hafna (I love you very much), which he had to learn to propose to his then girlfriend Tessie.

The two met at Birzebbuga Bay. Tessie was swimming when she caught Mr Hind's eye.

But the engagement was called off when Mr Hind, then in his early 20s, left Malta. "It broke my heart when I had to leave," he said.

From Malta he went to Catania and then to various places in mainland Italy, after which he was sent back home to the UK.

Times were tough during the war, Mr Hind recalls. The food rations were five ounces of bread a day and one piece of corned beef or spam (lunchean meat).

"One day I was on my way to the pen where the Spitfire was parked, with my lunch under my arm. I saw a plane coming toward me and it opened fire, so I threw myself to the ground and lost my lunch. It was more important to save my life."

Being back in Malta brings back some sad memories, including the loss of friends. Mr Hind explained that the pilots used to fly in formation when the Germans, which he refers to as "the bandits", flew in from Catania.

"But this didn't pay off and too many of ours were being shot down, therefore we started going out in pairs so that we could look after one another."

His worst experience, and one which he still remembers very vividly, was when his flying partner, Alex Lindsey, was shot down.

"I was looking in the mirror to see what was going on behind me, and in the meantime he was shot down. Unfortunately, they machine-gunned him when he went down.

"I blamed myself for years and years for not being able to look after him," he says, his voice swelling with emotion. The two had met in Malta and became good friends.

He remembered other old colleagues, including George Beurling, Gerry Billing and John Galea. Mr Hind and Mr Galea were in contact for years and met again in Malta in 1987. Mr Galea was wearing a straw trilby with a hole in the front and told his friend: "Look Ron, this is what the Germans did".

"They're all long gone," he said sadly.

Gino Briffa, the technician at the Maritime Museum who brought Mr Hind's jacket for him to see, said there are over 100 wartime uniforms at the War Museum and every now and then the former owners ask to see them.

He said the uniforms represented the suffering their owners had to go through to defend the islands.

He recounted that about six years ago an elderly gentleman went to the War Museum to donate his jacket and as Mr Briffa was going through the pockets he found an old scrap of paper with the name Marija written on it.

The gentleman remembered that he had met Marija in Strait Street, which was at the time known as The Gut, and which Mr Briffa said was "the Las Vegas of the Mediterranean". When he did some research he found that there were a lot of showgirls working there, and many of them were named Marija.

"Did you use to go there?" Mrs Hind asked her husband.

"No comment," he answered laughing.