Meeting Lyn Funnell at Horsted Keynes!
By Albert Fenech
I was brought up and schooled in England and later permanently returned to Malta in 1965 but over the last 60 years frequently resided with friends in Plumpton and Horsted Keynes (Sussex) during numerous work trips to London.
On one of these visits (it must have been in between 2012/2013) I met Lyn and her husband John in a pub at Horsted Keynes and she persuaded me to write a travel article about Malta for her highly-successful Online Magazine.
Why, because as a young girl, she had been brought up in Malta when her father was stationed here and we attended the same Tal-Handaq Royal Naval School but never met because we were there in different years.
Later we met on a number of occasions when Lyn and her husband holidayed in Malta as they had a shared holiday apartment.
During my many stays at Horsted Keynes I was reminded of my old school days in England and memorable moments that have vividly remained in my memory.
In my days there was a sharp distinction between Grammar Schools (for those that had passed the Eleven + Examination) and the Comprehensive Secondary Schools for those that had failed the exam.
This led to great snobbishness, Grammar being for the elite, Comprehensive for the other riff-raff and thus a state of warfare and enmity between those who attended. Needless to say, that at the time too, boys were boys and girls were girls, and mixed classes were still largely unheard of.
However, my secondary school career actually began in Malta when we returned for three years in 1957. My late RAF Officer father Frank Fenech had been given the option of choice of an obligatory overseas military RAF posting and naturally given the choice, he chose to be posted to our home country, Malta, then still under British dominion.
To continue my already three years of English primary education, rather than attending a Maltese school, my father chose I attend the Royal Naval School at Tal Handaq, a secondary school for the hundreds of children of British military and aligned service families posted in Malta.
The classes were divided into Grammar and Comprehensive and probably for one of the first times in history the classes were of mixed girls and boys because one-sex classes would have been too small.
In the early days I refrained from identifying my Maltese origin and used to delight in hearing Maltese maintenance employees speaking without their knowing I was hearing and understanding every word!
The school’s main attraction area was the tuck shop with a stock of fresh soft drinks and loads of cakes and packed sweets and I, naturally, visited frequently.
After having been a month at the school I was in the tuck shop one lunch time and there were several Maltese employees who carried out maintenance works and tended the playground and garden areas and were enjoying their lunch as a break in the shade and having a good chat.
The shop boss asked one of his mates to hand him a green bag of sweets off the shelf and I instinctively reached out, took the packet and handed it to him.
An immediate stunned silence fell over the shop. The owner looked puzzled and asked me in English “do you understand Maltese?”
“Jien Malti” (I am Maltese) I replied.
From that moment on I was treated like royalty. I was hugged, embraced and kissed. Thereafter, whenever I purchased anything, I was given a free bar of chocolate or a bottle of lemonade!
There was another highly important bonus. The word of being a Maltese boy among 400 or so British children quickly spread to all the coach drivers who picked and delivered all the pupils to and from central areas, no matter from the actual distance of their homes.
As from henceforth the drivers I had would make me stay on the bus, dump all the other children and then drive me to our doorstep.
Being the only Maltese among several hundreds of British children thankfully brought little discrimination – and certainly not from any of the many teachers of whose classes I attended.
Some of the boys and girls said “yuk – he is Maltese!” but these were minimal because I was good at football and athletics sports and that made all the difference! In fact I was chosen to represent Tal-Handaq in the annual Secondary Schools Sports Day and racing against fellow Maltese boys I came second in the 220 yards race and won a Silver Medal for myself and Tal-Handaq!
All these memories often come to mind but the greatest is that Lyn Funnell and I attended the same school and after I met her for the first time in Horsted Keynes, my travel writing career was launched and has continued for almost 13 years.
Many thanks Lyn and lots of love and kisses to you. Together with Maria Bligh keep up your great work on Unknown Kent and Sussex which has become a world top international travel site.
ALBERT FENECH
