Peter Apap Bologna writes about an outing in Buskett. From left: John Gatt Rutter, Edward Bartoli, James Galea, Tony Axisa, Fr Naudi, Peter, Gerald Bartoli and Norman Hamilton.

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of attending the launch of my friend Peter Apap Bologna’s first volume of his autobiography, Memories 1941-1973. Not since Herbert Ganado’s Rajt Malta Tinbidel (which covered life in Malta during the first three quarters of the 20th century) has there been a more evocative insight into a certain kind of Maltese life – simpler, more enjoyable, more socially stratified than today – in transition between colonial Malta and Independence and after.

This book could establish him as the Chips Channon of Malta – a social and political diarist of an era of Maltese history long gone, but whose romantic memories linger on.

It is the first of two volumes written in a series of short essays on a range of topics, supported by extracts from his own contemporary letters and diaries.

The book contains some wonderful photographs which perhaps more than anything serve to capture the nostalgia of a Malta during wartime and then after Independence.

Memories 1941 to 1973 takes us at a fast gallop through the first 32 years of Peter’s life, starting as a privileged and well-connected child in 1950s Malta with a happy though undistinguished education at St Aloysius College, where his early interest in books was fostered.

He was born a year after “Italy entered the War following the fall of France… when Malta’s very survival was in doubt. Hitler and Mussolini had unleashed their air forces in a sustained and heavy bombardment of the island... The sound of the air-raid sirens became as constant as that of the church bells, and the bombs fell relentlessly until the winter of 1942”.

It comes vividly to life when he goes to London to become a chartered accountant, qualifying there in 1963.

He captures the excitement and innocence of life in “Swinging London”, where living in the most stylish part of London with his friend David West, newly down from Sandhurst, only cost them about four guineas a week (that’s about €6 today) for accommodation.

“Sunday Mass at Brompton Oratory became a must for the Maltese in London, and was followed by a visit to the Bunch of Grapes. The pub was always packed with Sandhurst cadets”, a tradition which my generation at Sandhurst had started a few years earlier.

The next 10 years are a well-described, colourful and stylish account of life in London and Malta in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as family tribulations and successes. It evokes a close and loving relationship with his family, especially his mother, Amy, who was a life-long friend of my mother’s.

But mostly, it brings Peter in touch with the great and good of a colonial Malta which is moving inexorably towards independence –from Mabel Strickland to the Dorman family, and from the Borg Olivier family to the Howard Minters and the then British High Commissioner, Sir Geofroy Tory, whose step-daughter he eventually married, and many others.

He writes with pride of the day “On the twentieth of September at midnight the Union Jack was lowered, and the red and white colours of Malta rose in its place... A new armorial with dolphins was also introduced as the official insignia of the nation. This rather pleasing coat-of-arms was discarded some years later by Dom Mintoff, in a fit of pettiness, and replaced by a ‘luzzu’, a traditional Maltese boat, against a rising sun and a prickly pear tree…”

It brings Peter in touch with the great and good of a colonial Malta which is moving inexorably towards independence

He had the knack, or was it good fortune, to be in the right place as a thoughtful observer (for example sharing a cigarette on the balcony of the Palace with an emotional Prime Minister George Borg Olivier at the State Ball following Malta’s Independence, or being witness to the start of Maltese tourism with the flamboyant Dodo Lees acting as unofficial minister of tourism to Dom Mintoff) when historic changes in Malta were taking place.

Peter writes mostly with deep affection for these people and displays a deft touch at describing the life led by his equally privileged contemporaries, the jeunesse doree of Malta – the de Piros, de Traffords, Stricklands, Channers, Wests, Briffas, Borg Oliviers and Cassar Torregianis – all of whom were also then in the process of establishing themselves in a fast-changing Malta.

He recounts well how he and Nicky de Piro were early participants through their shares in G. Howard Minter & Co in Malta’s early property boom and also became involved in the then largely unsung Maltese art market:

“In the mid-Sixties there were a number of outstanding house sales brought about by death duties, as well as inheritances where the heirs decided to sell out for various reasons…

“At [one] sale Nicky made one of the outstanding acquisitions of his life when he bought a set of four oil paintings by Arcimboldo for £80, if my memory serves me well. These faces composed of fruit are, of course, famous, and even then worth several thousand pounds.

“They were put in the sale by someone who sadly did not appreciate what he had, and in those days the auctioneers had no clue as to the value of the items being sold”. Nicky de Piro always had a good eye.

Peter writes with optimism in well-honed prose about the cards life has dealt him and without rancour, though he does not hesitate to deliver a well-aimed barb if he feels an injustice has been committed, such as the infamous ‘collapse’ of the National Bank in 1973.

In one of the longest chapters in the book, he describes in a daily seven-day account the way “the National Bank of Malta was stolen by Dom Mintoff at the end of 1973. The directors of the bank were hijacked and taken hostage by Mintoff’s police bullies, and terrified out of their wits by his threats to themselves, their families, and their shareholders”. Who now could disagree with Peter’s assessment that “It was a shameful episode in Maltese financial history, and one that Mintoff may have well regretted in later years, but there is no evidence of that”.

He concludes his seven day account: “The actual transfer of the National Bank of Malta’s business, assets and liabilities was effected by the Council of Administration to the Bank of Valletta, on March 22nd, 1974 – that is, over three months after the bank had been taken over… Thus was the theft legalised, and to the eternal shame of subsequent Maltese Governments, nothing has so far been done to right what as unquestionably a great wrong.” Plus ça change.

Those who wish to know how fundamentally and irrevocably Maltese life has altered and wish to hark back to a more innocent and uncomplicated world should read Memories 1941 – 1973. Apap Bologna wears Herbert Ganado’s mantle well and, like Chips Channon’s Diaries in London between the 1930s and 1950s, these recollections are well written, truthful and honest, and demonstrate the author’s sharp eye and excellent memory.

The second volume will cover the years 1973 to 1988, taking him from gilded youth to middle age, when Peter returned to live in Malta after a career spent in business and international merchant banking in London and New York. We can look forward with anticipation to the second volume which is due soon.