A song for Strait Street

For decades, Strait Street, and particularly that part of it popularly known as The Gut, has been regarded as a notorious location. While its history has mostly been dominated by stories of shady goings-on in and around the many bars that lined this narrow street, a new publication by authors John Scofield and Emily Morrissey reveals there is much more than just a seedy side to our capital’s most infamous street.

Drawing on original research, the new study, simply titled Strait Street and published by www.midseabooks.com, takes an ‘archaeological approach’ to the street, peeling away its many layers to reveal the hidden histories that lie beneath the surface.

Published last month the book, according to its authors, retells the story of Strait Street, focusing beyond its darker attributes and bringing to light all it has contributed, good or bad, to the story of Valletta.

“History is not something that can be edited,” they said in a comment. “It just is, and we must learn to deal with that. The story changed when we started to meet the people still living in Strait Street, whose story this is.”

Taking the Maltese connection into more contemporary times, Bletchley Park’s song Fingers on my Face, which features on the band’s My Body Fighting album, has been selected as the song for Strait Street.

Representative of the finality surrounding the individual’s conflict with oneself and the rest of society, it also conjures a mood that encapsulates some of the things the authors felt as they looked around Strait Street while researching their study.

The band, currently preparing for a string of upcoming live events, commented that it was delighted to collaborate on a project that brings us closer to the history of Strait Street.

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