[attach id=368323 size="medium"]John Hughes has been to Malta 60 times. Photo: Jason Borg[/attach]

Seventy-five-year-old John Hughes loves everything about Malta, which explains why he just marked his 60th holiday on the island since 1980.

There is only one thing he would change: he would bring back the old, yellow route buses.

“Get the old buses back. The new ones are all right, they’re doing the job and it’s a better service now than it was with Arriva.

“But the old buses had character and I loved sitting in them and bouncing around,” Mr Hughes says, adding he mentioned this to Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis earlier this week.

I don’t come here on holiday. I come home

He was honoured and “very surprised” when he was contacted by the Malta Tourism Authority to meet the minister who gave him an engraved silver memento to mark his 60th holiday on the island.

Mr Hughes is pretty much a walking advert for Malta and when he’s not walking, he would like to be on an old, rickety bus.

The yellow buses stopped operating when Arriva took over the public transport system in July 2011 for what was meant to be a 10-year term.

However, it bowed out in January this year, in the face of a range of problems and the bus service is now being run by a company owned by Transport Malta.

Mr Hughes, from Stroke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, UK, first came to Malta in 1959. He was a member of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers stationed in St Andrew’s and Ta’ Giorni until 1961. In 1980, he decided to take a holiday in Malta and has been visiting two or three times a year, usually in May, September and December, renting an apartment in Sliema for about two weeks.

“When I walk past the shopkeepers they say: how many times? They’re counting now,” he smiles.

He is infatuated with the culture, the friendly Maltese people and the safe feeling that envelopes him when he visits. Over the years, he has seen apartment blocks replace beautiful houses and traffic jams increase but this did not dampen his loyalty.

“It’s just one of those places you love. You’re safe walking around, the people are great, as are the scenery and the heritage. I don’t come here on holiday. I come home,” he says.

And were it not for the high property prices, he would move here. His favourite spot remains Sliema though he also likes Mdina and its churches.

Yet, his favourite church is in Valletta: “My mother passed away while I was in Malta, in 1996, and I was walking around Valletta and went into St Paul’s Shipwreck church.

“So, now, every time I’m in Valletta I stop and go there to have a word with my mum and my family.”