Filippo Galea's signature on the receipts for music played during the feast of St Philip for 1857 and 1858, the latter shown in my letter in The Sunday Times of March 28, proves beyond doubt that the man playing at Żebbuġ, certainly from 1849 up to 1871, was not Mro Filippo Galea, Angelo's son, whose signature also appeared next to the other for comparison.

Again, in my previous two letters (March 28, May 30) I highlighted the years when the Filippo Galea playing at Żebbuġ could not have been Angelo's son, as the latter in those years was in Corfu, India or New Zealand.

Filippo himself, through his biographer in Biografia Artistica del Maestro Filippo Galea (1889), tells us not only about the highlights of his career as director of British regimental bands but also about his connections with local bands - those of Senglea, Floriana, Cospicua and Valletta. There is nothing about the founding of a band at Żebbuġ in 1851 and, had there been, it would surely have featured most prominently, considering the entries made with regard to the four bands mentioned.

Żebbuġ-born Dun Salv Ciappara took note of whatever was going on around him and duly put it down in his book Storia del Zebbug e sua Parrochia (1882). Not only did he not notice anything happening in 1851 but on page 94 he informs us that it was in 1860 that anything of significance in the way of music happened at Żebbuġ. That was the setting up of two schools of music, one by Indrì Borg and the other by Angelo Galea.

One has to bear in mind that Dun Salv was a close friend of Angelo Galea and had his son Filippo founded a band at Żebbuġ in 1851 he would surely have included that most willingly, particularly on page 100 where he wrote about him.

The well-known historian P.P.Castagna also had nothing to say about 1851 and corroborated Ciappara regarding 1860. Like Ciappara, Castagna knew what the musical scene was like before Indrì Borg established a school and later founded a formal band at Żebbuġ. This is the reason for his emphatic entry in his L-Istorja ta' Malta u Għawdex bil-Gżejjer tagħha Vol. III p. 248, where he made it a point to draw a line between what went on before and after 1860.

In recent times, Robert Mifsud Bonnici, writing in Il-Berqa of May 17, 1961, and Joseph Vella Bondin in his book Il-Mużika ta' Malta fis-Sekli Dsatax u Għoxrin Vol. 19 (Kullana Kulturali 2000), on p. 98 relied on second-hand and questionable sources when they wrote about Angelo's son founding a band at Żebbuġ in 1851, disregarding not only Filippo's biography, but also Ciappara and Castagna.

Moreover, they never carried out any research at the Żebbuġ parish archives so they did not know about the 1849 Rosario entry, the clash of dates and the respective signatures of Filippo Galea and his namesake dealt with in my March 28 and May 30 letters. Had they known these facts, they would definitely not have written about any involvement at Żebbuġ by Mro Filippo Galea, Angelo's son.

(In the opening paragraph of my letter of March 28 I wrote: "In 1959 it was declared that there is evidence that Filippo Galea, son of Angelo and bandmaster of British regimental bands, had founded a band at Żebbuġ in 1851." The italicised words were inadvertently omitted, so that it looked as if I was stating what was stated by others, which I meant to disprove.)