One day in the thirties, at the Dockyard School above Cospicua, a boy developed acute toothache and was sent by the teacher to the Naval Dentist down in the Dockyard at the end of Senglea Wharf. Of course! I thought, that's the way out of the dreaded singing lesson of a Thursday.
Came the next Thursday afternoon and I simply strolled down the ramp and walked through the actual Verdala Barracks and then disappeared into the maze of streets at the top end of Cospicua. If I came across any of the staff I would simply say that I had permission to see the dentist and trust that, whoever it was, they would not check upon me. Some of the staff did in fact live locally but I knew where and so avoided those areas. At the worst it would mean a couple of whacks from the Head if I was caught and maybe they would listen to my problems at not being able to sing - for I had protested about that to no avail.
Being both sunburnt and dark by nature as a Celt I stood a chance of being taken for Maltese but the giveaway was that I was wearing shoes or sandals for most Maltese children went barefoot except on special occasions at that date and no way was I going barefoot where hordes of goats roamed but the real giveaway was my height for I was so tall and most Maltese were shortish. Strangely enough in Malta nowadays I am only conscious of my height when I am in church with mainly an older congregation - for the youth of Malta today are so often as tall as the youth of more northern countries and that that has happened in so short a period I attribute to the tremendous rise in the standard of nutrition and living in Malta since the War.
So where to go in my freedom? I obviously had to keep away from the main part of town for fear of meeting British mothers doing local shopping and where many shopkeepers knew me so at first I headed off to the Cottonera Lines which extend for some five kilometres around the Three Cities and I inspected all the gateways, many of which had been blocked and in fact had no roads leading to them but to my surprise they were all occupied - usually by smallholders who cultivated scraps of land around the bastions and walls of the Lines and as usual they had fierce dogs about the place. I found little factories occupying parts of the Lines in what were intended as barracks I suppose and in the long moats or ditches there were rope makers spinning immensely stout hawsers for securing ships to the wharves. That was a fascinating process but we used to see that everyday as we walked to school.
Eventually I settled on a spot where Cospicua joins Vittoriosa very near to the Gates of Vittoriosa themselves. It was an elevated spot and I could look down over Dockyard Creek and Senglea and out across the Grand Harbour to Valletta, watch tugs and suchlike moving in and out of the Creek. Occasionally a small warship such as a submarine might enter towards Number One Dock at the head of the Creek. The spot does not look quite the same nowadays for the bombing changed so much but in those days the walls of the town had many niches and crannies and enclosed areas where sentries could be stationed and so I could wedge myself into a spot where I could not be observed from the road and there I either read or did my homework which freed me for time to play when I was back at my home in Rinella that evening.
Obviously I have affection for that location for I never fail to visit it whenever I am in Malta but there is much more to this spot as I was to learn later in life and once more that is something to which I will have to devote another article.
