My favourite month of the year!
By Albert Fenech
Yes, of course, I was born in the Merry Month of May and naturally it has to be my favourite month! I was born on 27th May 1946, a tail-end celebration of the end of the Second World War by my dear parents Frank and Pauline as my father had been repatriated from his military duties in Tobruk (Libya) and Foggia (Italy).
This makes me a Gemini – a two faced twin … one face showing one aspect and the other a completely opposite face! I leave that for my acquaintances to judge for themselves … In my opinion I have always been strait-faced and to the point, like it or not.
So on the 27th I should be celebrating my 79th birthday (fingers crossed!), but there are many, many other things which make May a Merry Month for me because it is packed with events.
The Valletta Green Festival is in full swing this week and will last to 4th May. This is an annual opportunity to enrich capital city Valletta with the green element of a carpet with a huge flower carpet spread in the main St George’s Square, the shrubs and flowers to create an intricate design of white, yellow, purple, red and pink colours for visitors to see, walk around and take photographs.
My last week’s article was devoted to summer music events in Malta and Gozo has an international springtime music festival, organised by the Gaulitanus Choir from Gozo which sees the Gualitana Festival taking place every year in springtime in Gozo, spread over a period of one month.
Activities are held at various locations from heritage sites to open-air sites to the opera houses in the capital of Gozo, Rabat.
The festival has a mix of live painting, art and literature, with vocal or instrumental lunchtime or evening occasions from classic to semi-classic, a mixture where you can find your interest to visit this island for some interesting time.
In addition there are also Church activities with yesterday 1st May devoted to St Joseph the Worker in Birkirkara. In the 3rd of May there will be the Holy Cross, also in Birkirkara, and then 4th May St Publius in Floriana – greatly celebrated by the people of Floriana. There are also further religious celebrations.
HOWEVER, HOWEVER, the best day of my life was 1st May when on 01-05-68, 57 years ago, I sealed the very best choice of my whole life and married my dearest wife and love of my life Matilde.
Yes, fifty seven years have passed but there is not one single day on which I have regretted my choice but to the contrary have been thankful for every day – that is 20,805 days – sealed yesterday.
Our holy wedding Mass was in the St Gaetano Parish Church in Hamrun in the afternoon and was celebrated by the Parish Priest who fittingly enough was Tilde’s uncle, Mons Matthew Chircop.
On the morning of the day I unknowingly committed a great foul! The May 1 Labour Day celebrations parades in those days were always held in Hamrun’s St Joseph High Street, and attended by many thousands, mostly followers of the Malta Labour Party. At the time I had great Socialist inclinations and visited the parade in the morning – even though later this was to be my wedding day!
When there, I knew that prospective wife Matilde (Tilde for short), was having her hair done in preparation at a hairdresser’s in Hamrun. I looked in to wish her a good morning and was unceremoniously shooed away by the staff and was lectured it was bad luck for the groom to view the bride before the wedding ceremony on the day!
After the Holy Mass we celebrated at the newly-built Dino’s Hall in Gzira/Msida, one of the very first weddings to be held there.
Besides the normal close family, relatives and friends, the guests were mainly colleague journalists because at the time I was Assistant Sports Editor of “The Times of Malta”.
Our honeymoon was in our then rented apartment in High Street, Hamrun, because we could not afford an overseas pleasure honeymoon and there we consummated our wedding!
I will repeat again, this was the best-ever day in my life and the best-ever choice I have ever made.
We are still happily together today and my dearest wife Tilde is always by my side to fulfil my many needs, medical and otherwise, as today I am immobile and wheelchair bound and have not left my apartment for two years.
ALBERT FENECH
