Malta During The British Era
by Maurice H. Micallef Eynaud
Allied Publications pp148
ISBN 978-99909-157-0
Most of my generation, popularly known as the post-World War II baby boomers, grew up in a social and political environment with a very strong and obvious British influence. The influence was stronger for those of us who lived near and around British Services establishments where servicemen and their families often mingled with the local population in a relaxed and friendly way.
At Kalkara, for example, we had Bighi Naval Hospital, the Rinella Wireless Station, Fort Ricasoli, Villa Portelli, Fort St Rocco and several other British Services facilities, all of which needed married quarters for officers and the ranks. But many of these preferred to have their own home or apartment in the village itself where they shopped and brought up their offspring in complete harmony with their Maltese neighbours.
My unofficial first Holy Communion photograph (the official ones were always studio-produced) was taken by a Mrs Brown living opposite us in Baptist Street. She took me up on the roof of her home to take it, with my mum behind her complaining I still had dirty knees from kneeling in church.
In those conditions, most of us boys and girls at the time could hardly avoid developing into anglophiles. We learned English from the very first class at school and we read all the popular UK football magazines. We played, and sometimes fought, with the servicemen’s children in the street, a rowdy mixture that often resulted in some hilarious Anglo-Maltese linguistic exchanges.
That most of us in the Cottonera area were later to become vociferous supporters of the movement for independence from Britain and the eventual closure of the British military base – the very thing that had turned us into anglophiles – was indeed an ironic twist of historical fate. But then, since time immemorial the Maltese have always had this innate independent spirit.
However, while there have been many historic arrivals on our shores, one of the most welcome no doubt was the arrival of Nelson’s fleet to assist the Maltese in their rebellion against the French. This event, after all, exemplifies in the purest and most dramatic form one of our history’s major changes, heralding a new era which later turned into a complete transformation of Maltese society. It was, in the whole world, a time of change that soon had steam making the horse redundant, guns defeating the finely-wrought sword, and progress pulling out the roots of the static feudal society that, in our case, had more or less persisted until the time of the Knights.
Maurice H. Micallef Eynaud’s book captures this new and exciting period of British Malta in a remarkable way. The author is at once a historian and a raconteur, projecting stories and episodes with both panache and authority. Covering a 164-year plus period of British rule in Malta (1800-1964), the author writes about the many distinguished visitors and personalities who came to Malta, from Alexander Ball and Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various kings and queens, with particular reference to Queen Elizabeth II who has had a close and warm relationship with Malta since her courting days here as a princess.
Micallef Eynaud’s anecdotal references to episodes and events, from royal visits and the International Eucharistic Congress to the two World Wars, independence in 1964 and the definite end of the British military presence in March 31, 1979, give the book a solidity and roundness very few local works in the genre ever achieved.
Another remarkable attribute of Micallef Eynaud’s book is, for the reader, its sense of discovery. One is inevitably struck by the many exciting, almost incredible but highly documented stories presented under pretty mundane theme titles.
For the non-military mind, the title The Malta Light Infantry – 1800-1802, for example, could hardly be expected to provoke more than a passing fancy, but on reading it one is overwhelmed by the details, the “unknown” facts and the ease with which they are written and presented. The same goes for the essays on The Malta-USA Connection, The XIV International Eucharistic Congress, Malta, 1913, British Benefactors and Prominent People Buried at Ta’ Braxia Cemetery.”
The book is in itself a reading pleasure ride across almost two centuries of British rule in Malta, with its many ups and downs which, as its blurb puts it, “Bring out the good (and the not so good)” of this important epoch in Maltese history.
Micallef Eynaud’s work is, no doubt, a first-class contribution to the continuing – and much needed – process of revisiting Maltese history minus the political filters that have been applied over the years.
The author rightly steers away from such cliché-ridden presentations – suffice to say the names Strickland and Mintoff do not come up anywhere.
Instead, the author prefers to submit a work that is both enjoyable and absorbing, including some unique pictures and a rich bibliography. And this, coming from the ironic anglophile I am, is saying something.
• Mr Flores is a writer, journalist and broadcaster. He has written books of fiction and non-fiction as well as poetry in both Maltese and English. He was one of the co-founders of the Moviment Qawmien Letterarju.
This book is available at Word for Word.