Sir Winston Churchill’s granddaughter Celia Sandys this morning laid a wreath near her grandfather’s bust at the Upper Barrakka Gardens to mark her family’s connection with the island.

She was on her first visit to Malta, having arrived on board the Christina O, the luxury yacht that formerly belonged to Aristotle Onassis, on which she had accompanied her grandparents as a teenager in 1959.

Ms Sandys is the daughter of Duncan Sandys, who was the UK’s Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations when Malta’s Independence was being negotiated.

In a speech Ms Sandys remembered various remarks that the wartime British Prime Minister made about Malta during his lifetime. Winston Churchill first visited Malta in 1907, en route to a big game hunting expedition in East Africa. During the Second World War he insisted that Malta had to be held "at all costs" and intervened personally with US President Roosevelt for an American aircraft carrier to deliver Spitfires to Malta twice.

In 1945 he persuaded Mr Roosevelt to meet him in Malta to discuss strategy ahead of their meeting with Soviet leader Stalin in Yalta.

In a telegram to Roosevelt in January 1945 he confirmed the arrangements in true Churchillian style, writing “No more let us falter! From Malta to Yalta! Let nobody alter!”