I read with interest the excerpt from George Sammut’s manuscript referring to my Aunt Mabel Strickland (The Sunday Times, October 14). I did have the two volumes of this unfinished manuscript in the study here at Villa Parisio, which is my home in Malta, and I am actually in the process of reading the second volume myself. I understand that these two volumes were presented to my Aunt Mabel by the family of George Sammut after his death.

However, I must strongly disagree with the notion that Mabel was ever the “self styled Queen of Malta”. Whilst others may have called her by that name, she herself would never have dreamed of doing so. She had far too much respect for HM The Queen whom she regarded as a good friend, and the extensive correspondence from those years, that I retain, between Mabel and The Queen shows that this was mutual.