Tribute to a wartime photographer

Victor Aquilina has paid a well-de­served tribute in the excellent Times Picture Annual 2010 to John Scerri, who was for so many years head of the photography department of Allied Malta Newspapers.

John started out as a driver with Lord Strickland, then found himself appointed a photographer shortly before the war, eventually showing great courage taking pictures often at great risk of the bombing.

He set up the photographic department after the war and led a dedicated group of photographers; he also organised the block-making department as the Allied Newspapers expanded, with the combined processing rooms situated on the roof of the offices of the Progress Press in St Paul’s Street.

It was from this roof that during the war he took dramatic photographs of the bombing of the harbour area. John used to stand atop a wall as the Stukas screeched overhead and one of these pictures I used prominently in Malta at War when I was editing the publication – this showed a Ju87 diving low to drop its bombs on the dockyard.

Another I used was of a mine exploding on the rocks in Marsamxett. He always explained with a smile he did not really take this picture himself. He was crossing the creek in a dgħajsa when the mine exploded a short distance from him and the blast clicked the shutter of the camera he had round his neck.

I was recently planning to use, while still editor of Malta at War, an account he had written of how he had sheltered an old woman who had panicked near the War Memorial at Floriana early on the morning of March 28, 1942 as some 40 Stukas appeared heading towards Grand Harbour: “As I was about to start running, a cry for help came from an old woman who was going in my direction. She appealed to me for assistance and I tried to take her to a shelter but in no time the bombs started to fall. The only protection was a stone wall by the side of the road and we both crouched down by it for protection. Then three enemy bombers detached themselves from the last formation and diving low released their bombs on Floriana’s parish church. At that point I knew what fear was and felt glued to the ground. I clung to the wall and covered the old woman with one hand. We stayed there till the bombers disappeared in the distance. As the thick cloud of dust from the bombs and the falling masonry of the church began to clear, I noticed that in front of us was a crocodile shelter which I had not seen. The pitiful state of my old companion enraged me... I had not witnessed anything more wicked, more terrifying than the deliberate bombing of St Publius Church.” The issue of Malta at War carrying this story ready for printing has regretfully been withheld by the publisher.

John was a pleasure to work with. I shared many years with him as I was the paper’s first picture/art editor and later for many years news editor with the photographers part of the team during the time he ran both the photographic department and the block-making department, a large staff whom he led with a fatherly regard. He was never angry and never lost his cool, even when he was under pressure and on the many occasions he had several visiting foreign cameramen using the newspaper’s darkroom facilities during special events. We worked together in those early years to set up the first radio-picture transmissions through Cable and Wireless and later introduced the photogravure process to print for the first time the souvenir booklet of the royal visit of 1967.

John Scerri’s expert handling of his department contributed in no small measure to the standing of Allied Newspapers both locally and in the eyes of the foreign press.