The late Joseph Caruana, Ġużi to the neighbourhood, ran a grocery store in St Julian’s for 45 years. Dominic Fenech recalls the man behind the counter, who was much more than just a vendor.
Is Ġużi there, my wife and I would sometimes ask each other. One of us would lean out on the balcony to check whether his pick-up van was parked outside his shop. For some weeks, he had not been there. We heard he fell ill and would not be back for some time. Last week he passed away without warning.
Spinola Road in St Julian’s, known as il-Qaliet, has lost one of its most treasured icons. Joseph Caruana, Ġużi to the neighbourhood, had been its grocer for over 45 years. Every morning, Ġużi would arrive in his pick-up, open his small shop, wheel out his freezer, push out boxes of soft drinks, six-packs of mineral water and assorted boxes of vegetables, and stack them on the pavement. Otherwise there would be no space left to move in the shop.
He used the garage next door as a store, from which he incessantly replenished the shelves in his shop. A storehouse man by trade, Ġużi was expert at packing and stacking, and he had to have everything in order to make the most of his limited shelf space.
Ġużi’s Spinola Store was an old-fashioned grocery with old-fashioned habits. People dropped in to buy items as they ran out of them – a carton of milk, half a dozen eggs, a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of wine, sometimes nothing. Then they’d go back later for the next item or two as the need arose.
Like other traditional grocery stores elsewhere, this was as much a social space as it was a convenience shop. A neighbour would drop in to discuss league football and wagers. Another would stand in the doorway chatting, blocking the passage. The woman across the street brought him mugs of tea at intervals.
Out of habit or out of need, not all customers paid as they bought. Ġużi was kind in that way. If a customer happened to be short on money, he’d say “pay me when you next get your wages”. His record database, held together with a sturdy rubber band, consisted of cardboard chits on which he wrote down what was owed to him.
Ġużi and his Spinola Store stood for a community lifestyle that has been under siege for decades
Ġużi belonged to the street and knew its people’s needs and habits. If a customer smoked Rothmans, Ġużi would hand him a pack with no words exchanged. I once spotted some old-fashioned Nacet shaving blades (the ones with the crocodile) behind his counter and was surprised anyone still used these. He stocked them for the old man next door, who wouldn’t use anything else.
Grocer does not begin to do justice to the services Ġużi gave to the street. You could order your daily paper from him. In his store he kept spare canisters of gas, in case someone ran out before the gas truck came. He’d lend you his hand truck to carry the canister home. If you bought packs of water, he’d get his helper, or wait until his son returned from work, to deliver them to your door, even brought up the stairs.
If you were expecting a parcel or a registered letter and there was no one at home when the post came, he would sign for it and hold it for you.
He kept long hours, often well into the evening, when the flow of customers thinned and he would set about ordering his shop, getting it ready for the next morning. He opened seven days a week. He worked hard but wouldn’t change his lifestyle for the world: Spinola Store was his world. He seldom took holidays, and then, only occasionally, to watch an international football match.
When someone died in the street, Ġużi would pin a black band on his door. When he died, people put flowers on his door.
Ġużi and his Spinola Store stood for a community lifestyle that has been under siege for decades. There’s nothing romantic about it but Spinola Road has an ecosystem of its own. Despite being wedged between the busy St George’s Road, Spinola Bay, Portomaso and Paceville, it held on tenaciously to its personality.
Over the years it fell prey to accursed development. In the past 30 years, there has not been a single interval in ongoing construction work along its length. With development came gentrification but also alienness, as more and more addresses go over to betting companies.
But Ġużi remained defiant, running his small store the way he always did. The neighbourhood misses his kindness, his usefulness, the simple fact of his being there.