A nurse and a dentist who eloped to Malta decades ago to get married, have been laid to rest on their “sunshine isle”.

Mary-Ann CockburnMary-Ann Cockburn

British Army Dental Officer William Barr Cockburn and Patricia McGrane escaped family disapproval in Scotland to tie the knot here in 1954.

The union took place when Major Cockburn was posted to Malta. Then 36, he sent a letter to his fiancée, telling her: “If you want to marry me, you come out too!”

“This was, perhaps, not a conventional, down-on-one-knee, proposal of marriage,” their daughter Mary-Ann told the Times of Malta 65 years later.

“But it was what the young nurse wanted to hear, and in a whirlwind of preparation, she bought a wedding dress, organised her passport, dealt with all the official papers, got vaccinated, bought her airline ticket and was soon on her way to join him.”

The posting was a Godsend. Major Cockburn knew that the traditional Glasgow Protestant prejudice against Catholics ran in his family, and he was not only marrying a Catholic, but was also undergoing instruction to become one himself.

However, the wedding dress was going to cost Ms McGrane a hefty Customs fee upon arrival. She protested: surely they would not charge her for an as-yet-unworn, wedding dress?

It was what the young nurse wanted to hear, and in a whirlwind of preparation, she bought a wedding dress and organised her passport

“The Customs officer asked to whom she was getting married, and she pointed out the young army officer waiting across the hallway… ‘Ah’, smiled the officer, ‘we will make no charge – it will be our wedding present to you from Malta!’”

The couple got married on January 16, 1954, and their union was made public in The Sunday Times of Malta the following day.

The marriage was reported in The Sunday Times of Malta.The marriage was reported in The Sunday Times of Malta.

Their marriage was also published in the Scottish media, but by then the deed was done and dusted.

The eldest of three daughters, Mary-Ann said her parents very often spoke of their “exceptionally happy, early married life in Malta”.

“Their first days were spent at St Helen’s Flats in Dingli Street, handy for St Patrick’s church. They spoke happily of meals out at The City Gem restaurant, and of enjoying a glass or two of Marsovin at a shilling a bottle, or, a real treat on special occasions of the ‘Reserve’ at one-and-a-half, feeling very sophisticated because drinking wine with dinner in Glasgow was not common practice in those days; it was only done in films,” Mary-Ann, herself born in Malta, added.

They also recounted tales of when they lived in Our Lady of Sorrows Street, plagued by flies due to a donkey living next door, whose braying often woke them up in the morning.

The couple was also regularly serenaded by a troupe of local musicians, who relied on one of their number shinning up a lamp-post to undo the street-light bulb, and inserting their own two-pin plug to play their electric guitar.

Their favourite places in-cluded Għajn Tuffieħa, Armier, Paradise Bay and Salina Bay.

Pat and Bill Cockburn in Methven.Pat and Bill Cockburn in Methven.

When their three-year posting in Malta was up, they reapplied for a second one. When this too was up, Malta made it onto their list of family holiday destinations.

The couple ended their days in their nineties in Methven, a small Scottish village in the county of Perthshire, and when asked where they had been happiest and where they would like their ashes to be taken, Malta was the only contender.

So their three daughters planted a memorial shrub at Ta’ Qali last week, and then scattered their ashes at the Msida Bastion Garden, where they will forever be looking out over their beloved island.

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