John Thompson left Malta as a child. Last month, he returned on a mission. Mike Sweet talks to a remarkable Australian whose philosophy on life and loss has lessons for us all.

John Thompson does not make a fuss about what he has been through; he’s that kind of man. Looking younger than his 72 years, he’s quick to smile, to throw in a quip and share his experiences with the quiet modesty that is characteristic of most Aussie war veterans of his generation.

Fifty years ago, he served as a sapper in Vietnam. That is until one fateful May morning, when a landmine ripped off his left leg, mutilated his hands and ripped his stomach to shreds. Two of his mates were killed in the same explosion.

With the help of prosthetic limbs and two years of rehabilitation, he went back to school to gain enough qualifications to work in the public service. It wasn’t a job he liked but it was a start.

Despite his injuries, things were looking up, particularly when, in 1971, he met Judy Hosking, a young Vietnam War widow.

After a whirlwind courtship, they married and, in the three years that followed, were blessed with three daughters, joining Judy’s two children from her first marriage.

But family bliss was short-lived. In 1974, Judy was diagnosed with bowel cancer. She died a year later, at the age of 31.

John Thompson at the Pietà Military Cemetery on Anzac Day, where he laid a wreath on the grave of Trooper M. Jury, an Australian casualty of the 1915 Gallipoli campaign. Photo: Fritz Grimm

With five small children, changing nappies was not easy with just one hand and a reconstructed thumb and finger.

Everyday chores were a major challenge. But John was a former sapper and sappers are trained to find ways around obstacles. He found a way.

“I learned early in the piece that you can’t dwell on matters that you’ve got no control over. You’ve got to get on with it,” he says.

“You make that choice.”

Two years after Judy’s death, providence intervened when he met Perle Butler, whose husband – also a Vietnam veteran – had been killed in a road accident.

They married in 1978, together raising their combined seven children and putting them all through private education, “to ensure they had opportunities which we never had,” Thompson said.

Meanwhile, in recent years, he’s helped scores of Australian Iraq and Afghan war veterans exorcise their demons.

“They’d tell me their problems and I was able to say: ‘yeah I know mate, I’ve been there, I’ve had that problem’. I was able to tell them there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”

While overseas travel is difficult, last year, Thompson, who was born in Gżira in 1945 and spent the first 11 years of his life in Malta, began planning a return to his ancestral home. The catalyst for the trip was the death of his mother, Jane.

Jane Spiteri was the eldest of 11 children. Her mother, Carmela and father, Dominic, were from Valletta, but in the war had moved to Gżira. On January 2, 1942, Jane’s father and eight siblings – the youngest, seven months and the eldest, 15 years old – were killed in an air raid.

It was at my mother’s funeral last November that my sisters and I began talking about how little we knew about our family’s story here

“The details of the Spiteris’ loss had never been really spoken of at home. I suppose it was all too raw,” Thompson said.

“And it was at my mother’s funeral last November that my sisters and I began talking about how little we knew about our family’s story here. So, I began researching on the internet and talking to the Maltese community back home.”

John’s mother had married his father, John Reginald Thompson, a British submariner, in 1940. At war’s end, the family, including John’s three sisters, shuttled between England and Malta, before migrating to Australia in 1956.

Grandmother Carmela had migrated Down Under in 1952. However, as the years passed and the Thompsons assimilated into Australian society, Carmela’s bond with her homeland pulled her back. In the late 1970s she returned. Half a world away from her children and grandchildren, she had decided to spend her last years in her birthplace.

“We had no idea about her life here, or even when she died, so I made it my mission to find out,” Thompson, who, on his arrival to Malta two weeks ago, made straight for the Public Registry in Valletta, said.

“They were able to give me a copy of Carmela’s death certificate. That told me everything I needed. She lived in Floriana, died on January 22, 1982, aged 84, and is buried at the Addolorata cemetery.

“So we found her grave and I went back to 1, Cameron Street, in Gżira, where I was born. The whole trip has been a revelation.

“I’m so proud of the endurance of the Maltese and their resilience during the war and to come out of it with such a positive attitude, to strive like they do.

“I’ve spent quiet times here reflecting on my childhood and admonishing myself for having stayed away for so long.”

John’s work in reconnecting with Malta is not over. His mother had a brother – Joe, the only brother to survive the 1942 bombing.

“He lived with us in England in Doncaster, in the early 1950s but we lost track of him. We think he went to Canada and that he married and had two daughters. Perhaps I have cousins here. I’d like to find out.”