Episodes, loves and dreams
By Albert Fenech
As I straggle (I purposely used “straggle” and not “struggle”) on to the end of my lengthy life my thoughts dig deeper and deeper to discover what I am – and what people think I am and what are the driving motifs which made me love this and not that, admire this and not that and prefer to eat this and not that or the other?
Drifting further afield I have now concluded that every human being is an island and each and every one of us all are different from the billions which surround us throughout the world, regardless of gender, nationality, race, colour or religion.
Malta and Gozo are made up of a cluster of small rocks in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea. Working on that onset they are so insignificantly small-sized they should have no history at all!
Yet, as I have always written – history and the development of human beings and countries/nations show exactly the opposite in that for such small and insignificant stones, they have per square metre, the most distinguished history in the world.
That has to be attributed to their geo-physical placing on this planet and the result of the presence of humans.
Historians from the United States, Russia, China, Japan and most of Europe may enjoy a good laugh over that statement but they are laughing over their own stupidity on the history of humanity.
Yes, their history/culture stretches far, far beyond 8000 BC but was that in the centre of world history? For many, many years the history of humanity developed in the evolvement of recorded world history and that evolvement was Europe. Thus Malta and Gozo slap-bang in the middle of Europe puts them in the very centre of world history.
When I was a little boy aged just five or six, Malta to me was an enormous place surrounded by islands Gozo, Comino, St Paul’s Island, Filfla, Fungus Rock and Manoel Island. In my miniscule mind those were the world with Malta as its centre – albeit that as I grew so the realisation these were merely just a few rocks in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.
However, at the age of ten, my late dear father Frank bought me the novel “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson and I absorbed myself into the island as I read it again and again and finally became a part of it.
At the time we had moved to England and were living in London and then Cardington in Bedford and I was still struggling to coordinate myself from the sunshine warmth of Malta into the cold and wet of the British weather and all its limitations.
My mind dealt on my early childhood in Malta when we lived in Gzira/Sliema and just off shore there was a minute island called Manoel Island. A record of its history goes back to the 1570s when it was known as The Bishop’s Island.
In the early 1590s there was an outbreak of the plague and because of its short distance off the main Gzira/Sliema coast a wooden-planked Lazzaretto Hospital was built there but was pulled down when the plague subsided.
However, the island continued to be used as a quarantine centre for various plague outbreaks and various care centres were built there and then dismantled.
By the early 1700s the island was established as a Quarantine Island for passengers of all visiting personnel but between 1723 and 1733, the Portuguese Master of the Order of St John Antonio Manoel de Vilhena ordered a proper military fort be built there and subsequently it became known as Manoel Island.
Skip all the rest and resort to my time, Manoel Island always seemed independent and internal movements were always restricted. The British sealed most of it as “a military fort” and left a small part for the “natives”, including a football ground and a small area for fishing and swimming for the “natives.”
When, then as a Flight Lieutenant in the British RAF, we returned to Malta and once again resided in Gzira/Sliema, Manoel Island was one of my haunts and I swam, fished and played football there in the areas devoted to “natives”.
An amusing incident; one day I went there with two Maltese friends and we daringly ventured into the area excluded for the British Government. While fooling around my friends saw approaching a British Military Police man and they hurriedly fled. I stayed on.
The Brit said “You are not allowed here. Come with me to the Guardroom”. I obediently followed. He ushered me into the room and the Duty Officer looked me up and down and asked “do you understand English?” I nodded sheepishly.
“This is British Government territory. You are not allowed here”. I nodded sheepishly. Then in my most posh British accent I replied:
“Oh yes I am. My father is a Flt Lieutenant in the British RAF and is the Senior Equipment Officer at RAF Ta’ Qali. I have as much right to be here as any of you have.”
The room went into a stunned silence and then a Maltese Police Sergeant who was present said “It’s true. I know this boy and I know his father. All is as he says.”
Again the silence was deafening and one official moved away and made a telephone call, probably to check and then returned and said “all the boy said is true – that is the situation.”
I was immediately released and told not to make so much noise and in future and also not to ask Maltese boys to accompany me!
Now, Manoel Island is again the site of most controversy. Some years ago an amalgam of entrepreneurs had signed an agreement with the Government to develop the whole of Manoel Island into an entertainment area – but after years nothing happened.
The Government now wants the agreement to be rescinded and intends to develop the whole of Manoel Island into a free national park area.
My boyhood Treasure Island has been restored!
By Albert Fenech
