Temperatures inside the steaming boiler rooms of gutted ships at the once bustling dock yards were 1,000˚F and workers feared their shoes’ rubber soles would melt if they stood still too long.
“We’d dance around to stop our shoes from melting. It was mad but we did it every day,” former fitter Manuel Attard, 75, said at a reunion of dockyard workers yesterday.
The bizarre ‘dance’ became known as “the dockyard jive”, a dance floor favourite in 1950s colonial Malta.
The emotional Mr Attard, together with some 40 other “dockyard jivers”, yesterday met at De La Salle College, not far from their former workplace, to reminisce over their experiences at the contentious shipyards.
The retired tarznari were reunited 60 years after joining the Admiralty Dock Yards back in 1953.
Times were very different back then. Apprenticeships at the dockyards offered us the chance for employment
“We went in to work together and we all had varied lives but the experience held us together. We’re of the ’53,” Mr Attard said.
Retired fitter Norman Cassar, 76, said that, for some, the infamous dockyards might symbolise the failings of a bygone Malta but for him and his former colleagues they had offered a unique freedom.
“Times were very different back then. Apprenticeships at the dockyards offered us the chance for employment,” he said.
For most, the “chance at freedom” came in the form of a weekly allowance of £1.14s (€3.50) followed, if you were lucky, by a full-time position, he explained.
Back then, De La Salle College had served as the main training school for budding workers.
“This school churned out dozens of employees every year. It was a main industry for Malta,” Mr Attard said.
School director Bro. Martin Borg said the dockyard students had garnered such respect for the school that they had pledged their first salary as a token of appreciation.
Their pledge had funded the large cobbled grotto near the school’s main entrance. Huddled under the grotto, the group took photos and shared jokes as well as memories of the decommissioned dockyards.
The domineering yards were once the island’s second biggest employer and boasted a chequered history from the early 1800s through to their privatisation and subsequent closure in 2009.
Former welder Giuseppe Ciantar insisted the yards were a source of national identity.
“It was a huge part of our lives. The knights used those yards and the Labour Party was practically born there. It was where part of our history was forged,” he said.
In the school halls, former employees gathered to pay their respects to a former instructor. One of their shipbuilding lecturers, Jack Smedley, was believed to have been killed in a rare shark attack in 1956. Mr Ciantar said Mr Smedley’s unusual death had captured the imagination of the then young dockyard workers.
Near the school’s rear entrance, other former employees discussed the fatal explosion of the Um El Faroud tanker at Dock 3 in 1995 killing nine people.
“I was still working there when the explosion happened. I had a friend who was struck by flying debris as he was cycling. He died. We were all aware of the dangers and we just got on with it,” Mr Attard said.
Meanwhile, under a well-worn straw hat, Giuseppe Seychell’s grin brims over as the group reminds him of his prowess in the corrugated boiler pits.
Mr Seychell, known to his friends as Einstein, beat 1,500 other applicants, scoring full marks on his entrance exam. It was 1953, he was 15 years old.