On the day Malta commemorated the shipwreck of St Paul this February, a bunkering vessel ran aground at Qawra Point. This place had also hit the news two summers ago because of the ominous-looking, rusty iron spikes seen protruding above the water surface of the artificially dug pool in this idyllic spot.

Sixty-two years back, aged 15 and already an avid, budding photographer, I was the proud owner of a Kodak Brownie Box camera, later even developing and printing my own snaps in my bedroom, which doubled as a makeshift photographic darkroom.

In the summer of 1956, I took photos of the pool at Qawra Point – at that time surrounded by a rocky, barren, barbed wire strewn wilderness. My late father used to choose this unlikely place for our family day out on Sundays, to ease the stress of a hectic business week, away from crowds and traffic.

It may come as a complete surprise to many how the artificially dug pool at Qawra Point looked like at the time. The photo I took 62 years ago shows the pool with wooden-slated platforms linked by a wooden walkway, propped up by concrete underwater supports running the length of the pool from edge to edge. Today, only the submerged concrete supports managed to survive the ravages of time.

The platforms supported large angle-iron structures. My father used to pitch a tent for the day on one of these platforms. The photo shows my late parents beside the tent surrounded by the seawater of the artificial pool, with the Għallis Tower in the background. I was told at the time that, years before, cardboard or canvas bulls-eye pattern sheets used to be attached to the sloping iron frames. The RAF or USAF fighter aircraft stationed in Malta used them as target practice as they flew low over Salina Bay. To our delight as kids, we used to find so many spent cartridges at the bottom of the pool, apart from an unusually large number of shiny multi-coloured cowrie shells that have almost vanished now.

The angle-iron structures are no more today. During my scuba-diving days, I came across several remains of these iron structures lying on the seabed at Qawra Point but even these last vestiges of a bygone era have become hard to come by.