One woman's island

Since her first visit in 1946, Jean Wilton, 80, has seen war-ravaged Malta slowly being built up. Over 100 visits later, she speaks to Veronica Stivala.

On seeing a woman has come to interview her, the sprightly Welsh woman Jean Wilton exclaims in her soft, almost whispery voice, "Oh it's a lady! No young man to see me?"

Her disappointment lessens when she hears a male photographer is on his way. "Just because I'm old, doesn't mean I can't still appreciate men," the petite lady with snow-white hair beams.

Even though Ms Wilton grew up during the Second World War, she has a contagious enthusiasm for life and is not set on ending her adventures any time soon.

She has been to Malta over 100 times, often twice a year. Her next holiday, in March, has already been booked. "I've never had a bad holiday in Malta. The Maltese are so friendly. I relate to them, I have an affinity with them. Most Maltese families are close-knit. In Wales, everyone is so busy making money, they forget about other people."

Sitting on one of the beds in her hotel room, Ms Wilton is neatly dressed, wearing bright orange earring studs to match her orange top and printed shirt. Her turquoise eyes glisten, windows into a free spirit.

Bursting with energy, she can't make up her mind whether she wants to pose for the camera and charm the photographer or cover the lens to prevent any photos being taken of her.

What is unusual about the bubbly Ms Wilton is that she has invested her entire life, literally and financially, in travel: she never bought a car, nor did she find the time to stop, get married and have children.

It was two children, however, who directed her to her first trip to Malta. Ms Wilton first came to Malta in 1946, aged 15, as a nanny with Commander Lord Glanusk and his wife for his children: Christopher and Susan.

Having completed a year's training to become a nanny, the young woman jumped at the opportunity to visit Malta, somewhat to the chagrin of her family.

"My father was a stickler," Ms Wilton recalls. He had made an arrangement with the family. If she didn't like it after six months, they'd send her back.

She stayed with the Glanusks in Hal-Far. Her family wanted her to return, but she had other plans.

Ms Wilton was the only single girl with the navy and sailors used to take it in turns to take her out. "I never met the same sailor more than two or three times," she chuckles.

She missed her sisters and wished she could tell them about all the adventures she had been up to. "I couldn't write home to my siblings because I didn't want my parents to find out what I had been up to."

Since she worked as a nanny, she wasn't supposed to go out at night but it did not deter her from meeting with her sailor friends.

Ms Wilton evidently still gets a kick out of the memory of her adventures. Because she didn't know whether the Glanusks would be going out at night, she had an agreement with the sailors: if the couple were going out, she would open both shutters. If there was a chance that they would go out but she was not sure, then she would open one shutter. Both shut meant nothing doing. Although Ms Wilton was living with a well-off family, she remembers an impoverished Malta. However, coming from a poor village in Wales called Mwyndy, the poverty in Malta is not something that overpowers her nostalgia.

At 24, she started suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and had to abandon her work as a nanny. She then became a security guard and worked in this area until she retired, travelling as much as she could.

A believer that travelling opens your mind, she has been around most of Europe (in addition to her biannual Malta trips, she makes another two yearly to Spain where her brother lives).

In 1949, in what was to be the start of many travels and adventures, she bought a train ticket to Nice and went there, on her own. She recalls how the train, called Le Bleu was covered in blue velvet. She laughs as she remembers her first experience of seeing a nudist beach.

Ms Wilton knows every hotel in Malta having probably either used their toilet or sat in their foyer to read or have a cup of tea. "They wouldn't notice that I'm not a guest," she smiles.

What does she remember about 1940s Malta? "There were very few buildings; I remember seeing rocks mostly, and one-floor buildings which you could count on your hand, and such a small number of beaches." She also remembers that many homes had been devastated after the war.

Ironically, whereas most of us would dismiss Bugibba as a concrete jungle, Ms Wilton is in love with the town. Every morning at around 9.30 a.m., she goes for a long stroll on the promenade, sometimes stopping to have a cup of coffee.

And even more ironically, the only drawback she sees is that there aren't enough hotels. So many have closed down to be replaced by apartments, she says.

She's made many friends in Malta and reminisces about one particular family from Birzebbuga of whom she knows everyone from grandparents to grandchildren.

"St Paul's Bay is the most beautiful bay," she whispers cheerfully in her Welsh accent.