Do you know Joyce and Marlene? JaneMary would like to thank them.

A woman, whose “brightest and happiest childhood memories” were made in Ħal Far and Kalafrana 60 years ago, is in Malta looking for three women: Yvonne, Marlene and Joyce.

JaneMary Castelfranc-Allen, 67, flew over from New Zealand with her husband Barry Parsonson to look for any records or information about her parents, who lived here between 1955 and 1958.  And while here, should she would also like to trace the three sisters.

“Malta remains very special to me because that period was easily the happiest of my childhood, in large part because of them. I would like to say a warm thank you to them, and their families, for the special kindness they gave me.”

Marlene was her nanny, while Joyce would sometimes cook for the family.

“Whenever I got frightened at night, I would go down the first flight of stairs and crawl into Marlene’s bed, snuggling up against her,” Dr Castelfranc-Allen told this newspaper.

Her father Robert C Allen, also known as Bob, was a New Zealander officer in charge of aircraft maintenance engineering within the British Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm. During the war, he was on one of the convoys that attempted to come to the island.

He lived in a house in Ħal Far together with his wife Gwynneth and four of their children, Robert, Elizabeth, known as Lilla, Nick or Nicholas and JaneMary herself.

Dr Castelfranc-Allen was speaking to the Times of Malta just hours after she managed to find the house in Ħal Far, with the help of aerial photos taken by her father and Google satellite maps.

Although abandoned, the house is still standing and the discovery was “very emotional”.

She said: “The memories that came back were extraordinary… I remember my father in his whites.

“I could see my mother in a gold dress on the balcony and myself playing outdoors. She would call out: ‘Time to come in now’ and I would go indoors and eat Maltese bread with kunserva.”

The memories before and after Malta are darker”

There are also memories of lizards and warm stone colours.

“I would walk on the fence to get to the school bus down the road. Once I fell off and broke my arm.”

She also nurses memories of Marsaxlokk and Birżebbuġa, and to this date, whenever she swims in the Mediterranean, she remembers the octopus that once clung to her foot in Kalafrana.

Children playing at the house in Ħal Far.

Dr Castelfranc-Allen recalls that every week she would be given some pocket money which she would spend on a bottle of 7-Up, and then trade the bottle for four sweets.

Her memories of the time spent in Malta are bright, and once the family returned to England, “the lights went out”.

“All my life I remembered Malta as that bright, warm, comforting place… the memories before and after Malta are darker.”

Anyone who has any information about her father, memories about her mother, or knows any of the three sisters can get in touch on janemaryphd@gmail.com.

The house in Ħal Far. Photos provided by JaneMary Castelfranc-Allen