On Wednesday morning, 78-year old John Ranson woke early, prepared a cup of tea for his wife, and stepped into the garage of his Siġġiewi home to pick up some food for his fish.

The first thing he saw was a pair of feet behind the door. The next thing he saw was a gun. Armed only with his cup of tea, Mr Ranson found himself faced by three intruders, all wearing balaclavas.

“At first I thought it was someone playing a prank, then when I saw they were hooded, and one of them was holding a gun, I knew this was real – they hadn’t come for bacon sandwiches,” he told the Times of Malta, speaking calmly in his living room a day after the incident.

Riding on instinct, Mr Ranson, a former England international rugby player, slammed the door into one of the intruders, threw his hot tea at the second, and aimed his empty mug at the third, hearing it smash against the wall behind him.

Slamming the garage door shut, he began shouting men’s names at random, to give the impression that he had friends in the house he shares only with his wife, while searching frantically for anything he could use as a weapon.

“I thought attack was the best form of defence,” he says, walking around the now empty garage a day later, wryly pointing out a large wooden cane and a garden axe leaning against the wall. “At the time, the only weapons I had were my tea and my voice.”

One of them was holding a gun, I knew this was real – they hadn’t come for bacon sandwiches

Fortunately, the intruders seemed unprepared for a confrontation, and after some panicked conversation, he heard them leave his house the way they had come, over a garden wall.

[attach id=528439 size="large"]Mr Ranson had to resort to using an unlikely weapon. Photo: Shutterstock[/attach]

Mr Ranson has lived in a quiet, rural area on the outskirts of Siġġiewi for 10 years. He has learned a few words of Maltese and is a regular participant in the small feast held every summer at the chapel down the road, which he says gets better every year.

Never has he been given any cause to feel unsafe.

His outer gate is often left unlocked, and he has received nothing but friendship from his neighbours, many of whom have rallied round his wife and him since the incident, stopping by to share a few words or leave a dish of food.

Now the elderly couple feel more nervous and security conscious than they ever have before. Alarm bells first started ringing last week, when in the middle of the day, Mr Ranson found three men, who he believes were the same ones who entered his house on Wednesday, in his outer courtyard.

The men claimed to be Italian and, seemingly shaken when asked why they were there, hurriedly asked if Mr Ranson had anything to sell before rushing off to a parked BMW and quickly driving away.

Mr Ranson noticed the car’s tinted windows and memorised its number plate, which police have since informed him is a fake.

Today, his doors and windows are locked and he is more careful about security around the home. But his main concern is wanting to see the intruders caught and removed from the streets.

“The police have responded very well,” he says. “We can tell they’re putting the effort in. This is such a nice country, and we mix so well with the people of Siġġiewi; it would be terrible if something like this were to happen to someone else.”

Standing in his garden, pointing out the footsteps the intruders left in the flower beds, Mr Ranson smiles: “I’ll die here, but hopefully not with a bullet from some hooligan.”