Gerald Fenech writes:
I was on my way to the Cinque Terre, in Liguria last Sunday when I received a message that took me slightly by surprise. “Charles has passed away; he was 81”, it read and immediately memories began flooding my mind as I took the sad news in. The ‘Voice’ was no more and had gone over to the other side.
I got to know Charles about 15 years ago when we used to meet occasionally at the old PBS studios in Guardamangia in the happy days of the now long gone FM Bronja.
Occasionally, I would pluck up some courage to ask him a thing or two about broadcasting techniques. He was occasionally gracious but still slightly haughty and reserved.
However, when I asked him for some help on a programme, he changed tack and was very accommodating and we struck up a friendship that lasted right until his death.
Charles lived just opposite the PBS studios and I used to visit him often to discuss programmes and other subjects. We went for long drives and countless walks to all the haunts of the past: Vittoriosa, Kalkara (before the hideous Smart City development), Xgħajra, Birżebbuġa, Marsaxlokk and even Gozo.
It was a friendship rich in intellectual discussion and, being the person he was, Charles could open up at a moment’s notice, perhaps very unlike the haughty picture he gave to others who did not know him so well.
Admittedly, I had lost touch with him for some years but, recently, we met up a couple of times like the old days. He had grown frail and tired, especially after a massive operation last April, but he still retained that positivity of old. “I’m fine,” was the answer every time I asked him how he felt. However, some months ago, we had planned to go for a drive and dine out but he cancelled saying he was tired. I somehow knew that the days of those long walks and excellent dinners were gone forever.
Charles was a public yet very private person.
His voice is synonymous with all those great milestones of this age, the State visits and the famous 1989 Bush-Gorbachev summit (where he almost died after having caught a severe cold when commenting on the event in some rainy and windswept location) was perhaps the commentary he was proudest of.
Till the very end he remained active at PBS – his first and last love.
He will be sorely missed by all who knew him and I count myself as fortunate to have been one of them.
Goodbye, Charles… till we meet again.