A knight’s armour shone and a scimitar flashed at St Vincent de Paul Residence for the elderly yesterday, 450 years to the day since the start of the Great Siege.

The knight was a mannequin dressed in authentic infantry armour and the scimitar an Ottoman’s weapon, two of the centuries-old items usually displayed at Heritage Malta’s museums.

But because elderly people with mobility difficulties could not visit a museum yesterday, World Museum Day, Heritage Malta took the museum to them.

Residents from four wards were told that on May 18, the Maltese saw the Ottoman fleet on the horizon from Delimara point, off Marsaxlokk.

Malta was the country nearest the Ottoman border and the siege lasted throughout the summer of 1565, Vanessa Ciantar, from Heritage Malta’s Education Department told the nodding group.

The residents, some of whom had never been to the Armoury in Valletta, or who remember the museum in a different location, were shown some other weapons of the epoch: a crossbow and a rapier (used by the Knights).

The mannequin in authentic steel armour was wheeled around on a trolley.

The short and interactive presentation was engaging, and some were eager to chime in with their own memories of more recent warfare. One of the residents, Leli Muscat, was an 18-year-old conscript in World War II. Mr Muscat, of Dingli, explained that as a corporal, he was stationed with 12 others in barracks in the Rabat and Mtarfa area.

It was horrible, and I won’t forget it

One day, soon after he and a sergeant left the barracks with another soldier at the end of their shift, a bomb was dropped on their station. “All we found were heads and arms protruding from under the rubble.

“It was horrible, and I won’t forget it,” he said, shaking his head. After the war, Mr Muscat continued to serve his country as a policeman and later on as a sergeant, and he still carries a scar from when he was stabbed in the chest with a flick knife.

St Vincent de Paul residents being shown a crossbow as they are told the story of the arrival of the Ottoman fleet 450 years ago.

The event yesterday also brought fond memories to 67-year-old Angelo Galea, who took part as an extra in the 1978 film Midnight Express, parts of which were shot at Fort Saint Elmo – the scene of some of the most intense fighting of the Great Siege.

This was Heritage Malta’s first outreach activity with the elderly and it is planning similar ones with St Vincent de Paul’s Active Ageing Unit. It was also one in a series this week to celebrate 450 years since the Great Siege.

On Sunday, the Maritime Museum in Vittoriosa was transformed into a hub of activities and hosted, among others a 16th century surgeon demonstrating his medical skills and sailors showing off their fighting abilities.

Today Heritage Malta will head to the primary school in Birżebugia, where the Turks first disembarked, to tell the story of the siege to Year Five students. Meanwhile the public is being invited to a lecture tomorrow about Perez D’Aleccio’s frescoes recounting the episodes of the Great Siege.

The talk will be held in the Throne Room at the Presidential Palace in Valletta at 7pm.

Apart from this presentation, investigative and scientific apparatus will be used to analyse the composition of these works of art.

More information and bookings are available at 2124 9349.