I remember the house where I was born… The haunting verses of Thomas Hood imprinted for posterity from an early age except it wasn’t so much a house as a cramped and overcrowded apartment.
The bittersweet nature of nostalgia brings back good and not so good memories, missed opportunities and regrets which adorn the rich tapestries of our lives. The halcyon days of mid-20th century Malta was a veritable treasure chest of sweet and unforgettable memories of a vigorous and healthy lifestyle without any of what today’s Generation Z may consider the barest necessities of life.
The family was lucky to have summer access to an old and almost derelict small residence at Xemxija Bay. The surrounding fields which have since disappeared and given way to concrete apartment monoliths, were a source of, in theory forbidden, but easily accessible fruit to the growing children.
The bay itself was like an oasis of glimmering sparkling clear waters and fresh summer breezes. The sea was unpolluted by slicks of gross fish farm effluent endemic today. The bay was then teeming with life and uncontaminated by car-cinogenic chemicals leaching from antifouling paint on the hulls of the literally hundreds of boats now haphazardly and densely moored totally congesting the bay in summer with no planning or care for other users.
Mullet and species of bream were abundant. We suffered severely from internet and texting deprivation but our lives were enriched by constant chatter and inter-family engagement on all manner of things, unarguably a much preferred alternative to mindless texting or web surfing.
Non-therapeutic designer drugs were unknown but the haunting pleasantries of brewing coffee and exchange of family news with friends and relatives after morning Mass had a lifting and lingering pleasurable effect on our spirit.
Paceville was just a scenic little town none of us ever had reason to visit as growing teenagers. We were clearly delightfully disadvantaged. Private vehicles were few and far between which would have explained the absence of the choking haze prevalent in our skyline of today.
The bus service was cheap, convenient and reliable. There were no high powered Porsches, Ferraris or similarly banal displays of excess on an island which at one time was considered barely spacious enough for the traditional mule and cart, but conversely we had fewer if any road deaths and the roads such as they were, clearly much safer.
Paceville was just a scenic little town none of us ever had reason to visit as growing teenagers. We were clearly delightfully disadvantaged
Despite the relative idyllic circumstances growing up in that Eden which was Malta there were still challenges. Children growing up in a devout Catholic family within small insular communities in a small country heavily steeped in religious ritual had their young minds and developing psyche under constant siege from daily sermons of eternal fire and brimstone and constantly threatened by the all-seeing eye in the sky.
Maybe as a result of the saturating religious programming about the afterlife we often found ourselves deep in contemplation. The constant reminders by our peers that our existence was simply a short-lived transitory one and merely a prelude to eternity which had a heavy dampening effect on youthful exuberance and led to frequent bouts of deep contemplation.
Death and abstract metaphysics in the mid-20th century was very much part and parcel of the Catholic faith and was reflected in the mindset of the then younger generation. I stumbled upon self-consciousness as a young child pondering how individually we experienced sensory feelings, the highs of young love or conversely the nadir of grief. As teenagers we coped without the crutches of designer drugs.
It was a very daunting time for impressionable young boys and girls and frankly frighteningly unhealthy for young minds still waiting to lock horns with the tides of hormonal changes awaiting in the wings. The esoteric inner mind meanderings of Catholic mysticism can cast unhealthy shadows on impressionable young minds.
The otherwise Utopian lifestyle of the 1950s was not without challenges for heads of families. Heavy unemployment and poverty baseline wages for the working class presented the most difficult hurdles in what otherwise seemed a veritable paradise.
We wind forward half a century and as I sip my cappuccino overlooking the Amalfi coast surrounded by a crew fretting over my personal comfort I am overwhelmed by a sense of regret and life’s unfairness. It strikes me that based on what my hard-working father’s weekly wage was in those days he had to work physically exhausting daily hours for over a quarter of a century to equal the cost of refueling my yacht today.
He did all that and more for his family without a single word of complaint. Marxism with its complex dialectic would have been a welcome change in the right circumstances. Despite the financial hardships for the working classes Malta in the 1950s and 1960s was generally a happy social enclave.
Little or no traffic, clean air, clean sea everywhere, no plastic, no food contamination, tightly knit families and caring parents in other words a simple but comfortable life in a comfortable unquestioning relationship with our God. We were very lucky to have experienced those days which are forever lost.
There were of course social issues. Large families living together in cramped apartments were incubators of endemic social problems. There were none of today’s highly qualified social workers and psychologists who clearly do a lot of good but lack the one-on-one empathy but we had our kappillan (parish priest), marriage counsellor, expert on family affairs, sage and placatory adviser, comforter when needed and available round the clock at no cost to his entire parish. Much is owed by generations to those few.
Malta is now a prosperous micro economic powerhouse compared to what it was 50 years ago but those of us who think this very significant economic change is an absolute blessing and came at no cost to current generations are sadly wrong.
As the saying goes what the eye has never seen in this case the heart doesn’t grieve for. Malta has undergone a monumental social and economic change which some may argue is vastly for the better. Maltese of my generation may well just argue that issue.
Tony Trevisan is a businessman passionate about the environment.