Lyceum teachers who will long live in the memory of 1940s students

Reading about Rocco Farrugia a recent "100 years ago" feature evoked nostalgic memories. Way back in October 1943, Mr Farrugia was our first Italian master on admission to the then Junior Lyceum in Ħamrun. He must have been well past retiring age by then, since after the Christmas term he was no longer on the Lyceum teaching staff.

Hailing, like Mr Farrugia, from Ħamrun, I happened to be in the same class as his son - whose first name now escapes me. We were in Standard III at the Government Elementary School under the charge of John Cardona, a highly charismatic teacher. We used to take our lessons at that particular period of the war, that is 1941/42, at the Ħamrun parish church loft right over the vestry or sacristry in what was then Oratory Street.

When Mr Cardona was promoted and moved on to the Approved School, our class was taken over temporarily by the late Anthony Pellegrini of Xandir Malta fame. Mr Pellegrini's style of instruction will long live in my memory. For one thing, he announced on his first appearance that those of us who wanted to be excused to go to the toilet, need not bother to ask for permission: Just raise your hand and off you go! Needless to say that most of the time, half of the class ended queuing up. And mind you, this was by no means the time of the wartime typhoid outbreak when frequent visits to the toilet might have been the order of the day !

Another amusing feature, very often indulged in, to our obvious great glee, was for him to ask two of us to start reading aloud from our English Reader, The Melita English Course, in front of the whole class. The one who finished first was the winner! Regrettably I am unable to vouch whether whole sentences - not to say whole paragraphs - were inadvertently overlooked !

Mr Pellegrini was one of those who indulged in physical punishment. And this brings me back to Mr Farrugia. His son, a very lively 11 or 12 year old, must have got under Mr Pellegrini's skin. One fine morning, presumably after some prank, he ordered my friend to come out of his place and, in front of all the class, to stretch out his palm. And, by Jove, with the leg of a broken chair - one of those formerly used in our churches (!) - Mr Pellegrini delivered a blow on Farrugia's palm that made all of us wince... but not the young Farrugia who struggled successfully to keep a straight face. The next morning my friend turned up with his visibly swollen hand, bandaged and in a sling! I know that there are still around, some of us - now in their late 1970s - who might well recall this episode.

Unfortunately, Mr Farrugia's son was one of the many innocent WWII victims: He lost his life when their Villambrosa Street home in Ħamrun was destroyed by the Luftwaffe. For all that, I feel pretty sure that all of the above dramatis personae are smiling happily from wherever they are, very likely in the bosom of our heavenly Father, and that, of course, includes Mr Pellegrini.

"Qua de regrets ! Que de souvenirs!"