Saturday July 9, 1977, 8 a.m.: I walk into my office at Television House, then Xandir Malta. Two police constables enter my room and ask me to leave the premises.
I refuse and ask why they are trying to prevent me from doing my job as assistant head of TV programmes. They have orders. I refuse. Enter Lino Cassar (member of the board of directors of Telemalta) who tries to cajole me into obeying. I'll have none of it. Enter Leone Fenech (deputy chairman, Telemalta) who informs me that I am to go home on paid leave and report for work on Monday, July 11. Satisfied that the police officers were witness to this statement, I pack my things and leave. I am greeted in the foyer by staff members that had received the same treatment. We leave together and head for home.
This was the preliminary to the 10 years of my political blacklisting by the Mintoff regime for having obeyed a legitimate two-day strike directive by the MGEU (Malta Government Employees Union).
Thirty-three MGEU members from Xandir Malta suffered a seven-month suspension without pay following our refusal to sign a declaration, presented to us by Armando Seychell (chairman, Telemalta), which did not allow us the right to obey a legitimate union directive. This was eventually signed, to my disgust, on our behalf, by the union's mediary, Pawlu Farrugia, at the end of January 1978. I resigned my MGEU membership immediately, making it clear that all that hardship we'd been through had now been turned into a black comedy by this action.
Friday February 3, 1978, 7.30 a.m.: Reported for work at Telemalta's telephone exchange, Spencer Hill, Marsa. During the years which followed I was sent from pillar to post in various departments which had no connection whatsoever with my job in broadcasting.
¤ External telecoms accounts division - telegraph (St George's)...didn't last long. Head of section didn't know about me and had no work for me!
¤ Officer i/c library (telephone exchange - Marsa)... sorting out International Telecommunications Union material... quite interesting. Shared office with another "striker"... still below my grade and having nothing to do with my job... treated well by Maurice Mifsud Bonnici (head of telecommunications) but watched like a hawk by some and "charged" for every trumped-up misdemeanor.
¤ Officer i/c library - transport section (St Francis Ravelin)... a desk in a garage among corporation vehicles. No work was given...spent my days on the bastion walls just outside, sketching wild plants and flowers!
¤ Officer i/c library - overseas billing section - (telephone exchange, Marsa)... issuing overseas telephone bills under a very junior officer (nice chap though!). More "charges" of insubordination (surprise, surprise)...
And so it went on until a change of management in March 1983. Tony Nicholl and Salvu Fenech, chairman and general manager respectively, were replaced by Frans Carbone and Anthony DeBono.
I started on the wrong foot with the latter two. After a short period of time, however, I was treated in a more positive and gentlemanly manner and given jobs which were creative, challenging and more in line with my training.
Although still a persona non grata at Toni Pellegrini's Xandir Malta until the 1987 general election, I owe it to these two gentlemen, particularly Mr DeBono, for seeing through their political blindfold and making every effort to mitigate the hurt of debasement which I had been subjected to. I was even, for a short period of time, appointed on a board within the Broadcasting Authority as critic of the ongoing Pellegrini broadcasting farce - a job more in line with my training.
Throughout all this, of course , the one thing that kept me sane was the cartoon which I produced every Sunday for Roamer's column, which came into being on October 2, 1977. At the time, no one knew who the person behind the Nalizpelra cartoon was and, during those 10 years, and for some years later, this remained a secret.
But more, much more, about all this in my next cartoons book Blame It On Me!