大象传媒

Maltese Childhood (1946-47) cont.

Chapter 3 Hal-Far - At last our own home.

鈥淭his story was submitted to the people鈥檚 War Site by volunteer Anita Howard from Essex Action Desk CSV on behalf of herself as Anita M. Sackett and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.鈥�

An old bungalow was found on the edge of Hal-Far aerodrome. I believe it had been used as an officer鈥檚 mess and consisted of two large rooms, a kitchen, bathroom, spare room and outside yard.
It was opposite the Naval Sick Bay and behind that were the Naval married quarters.

It seemed like a palace after the small hotel bedroom. The first room was converted into a bedroom for the four of us. A double bed was at one end and two single beds at the other for us. At last we would have a bed each! Dad built us book shelves over our bed heads and wired in electric reading lamps.
There was a curtain rail suspended from the ceiling to divide the bedroom, however my mother could never afford to buy the curtain material. At night I would often get to sleep by counting the curtain rings. One day I was fed up with the same position of the rings so I took the yard brush and moved them with the long handle. What a strange memory!

The other large room was the living, dining area. My father was a good handy man and made further bookshelves and cupboards. He also made a large wardrobe, a smaller one for himself and a dressing table for the bedroom. He had copied the style of the hotel bedroom furniture and used plywood which he painted cream with a dark green border. The rest of the furniture was rented at a huge cost per month which my mother said was exorbitant. She never forgave that shop for cashing in on the shortage of furniture to rent.

The kitchen was very old fashioned, serviced with a coal burning iron range which was much too hot to use in the summer. There was no washing machine or 鈥榝ridge.
In order to keep meat, butter and milk from going 鈥渙ff鈥� we had an ice box in the hallway where it was dark and gloomy, away from the sunlight. It was a wooden or metal lidded box lined with lead. Every so often ice blocks would be delivered from the ice cart and these would be put into the box to help keep the food fresh.

My mother bought a two burner Valor oil stove which she used in the summer. Cordina, a local Maltese man did the heavy washing. He loved children and brought us small gifts from his sister. He was always telling us, 鈥淎nd my sister, she say ----.鈥�

Once he gave us a miniature stone cooking stove, a replica of the ovens used in the back yards of the Maltese houses. He was a wiry little man with rather a big nose. When he rolled up his sleeves to do the washing his arms were white and full of large blue veins. We felt very sad when he couldn鈥檛 work for us any more. More government red tape, I believe.

The spare room was the junk room with odds and ends, spare cases and crates, needed for our return to Britain. And of course the toys we had brought from home, which had been in storage. It was great fun to have my tri-cycle, scooter and doll鈥檚 pram once again.
Now that our possessions were unpacked mum could use her sewing machine so she bought some thick cotton lace material which she dyed deep pink and green and curtained the bedroom and living room areas. She loved dressmaking and made many frocks for herself and for Ginny and me. We had some very pretty cotton print sun dresses and several times people wanted to know where they were from. One of the materials was called Tabralco, good cotton and lovely to sew. It was scarlet, with a yellow flower design and the dress had a plain yellow Peter Pan collar with puffed sleeves. Ginny and I had matching dresses.
In the 1940s, the dress materials were mostly pretty flower prints which looked fresh and cool in the Maltese climate.

Our house had no garden, just a back yard surrounded by a corrugated iron fence. Behind the fence was a lot of junk left by the American forces after the war. Sometimes we would retrieve books by putting our hands through the gaps to see what we could find.
The yard was paved with old tiles, the remains of an old room. Dad kept his barbells in the yard which he used to keep fit. My, did his face go red! Mum had her washing line there and there was also an old table which we used to cover with a sheet and use as a tent or pirate鈥檚 ship.

The house was plain but we enjoyed living there. It was flat roofed, with green slatted window shutters to keep out the sunlight and therefore keep the house cool in the summer. At night the shutters were closed to keep the house secure.

Nearby were many Nissen huts belonging to the Air Ministry. In one, some carpenters worked and we would watch them sawing and planing the wood. I still remember the sweet fresh smell of the wood shavings and sawdust.
One day the carpenters were teasing us and I hit one of them with Joey my lovely brown Teddy bear. Unfortunately one of his glass eyes fell out and although we searched amongst the shavings, Joey remains one eyed to this day.

Sometimes we would venture onto the edge of the aerodrome and see the weather balloon waving in the wind. Dad told us it was used to help the aeroplanes land as it showed which way the wind blew. Sometimes there would be propeller planes waiting on the runway and vehicles with black and white squares on them. There was also a control tower, used to direct the aircraft. Strangely I could never get excited about the aircraft so can鈥檛 remember their names. (We still have some photographs left of them.). The terrain was parched and scrubby with no trees and we were careful not to wander too far on to the airfield as that was off limits to us for obvious reasons.

When it was too hot to play out side we used our dressing up box. Mum encouraged us to be creative and use our imagination. We enjoyed many books and our parents read us stories from the classics so we would re-enact them, dressing up as princes, princesses, pirates, Sinbad the Sailor, Robin Hood or Arabian dancing girls.
Mum let us use her outdated clothes; her wedding veil and train, belts, gloves, scarves and hats, costume jewellery and necklaces. An old green rain hat was changed into a Robin Hood hat with an added pheasant鈥檚 feather, a crimson velvet hat became a princes鈥� headgear and my father鈥檚 old scout鈥檚 hat reshaped into cowboy hat.
We had no near neighbours and very few children to visit and no T.V, so we had to keep ourselves amused. I liked to paint so I would enter a colouring competition every week run by a local paper and although mum said it was good, I never won. She encouraged us to draw, play board games and cut out things and I learnt to do some simple sewing.
We did have a small bakelite wireless, so mum and dad listened to the news and dance band music which they loved. I suppose they also listened to the old radio programmes at night time when we were asleep.

Hal-Far was a fair distance from the nearest village, Birzebuggia, so we had to get a local bus. At first we could use the Navy transport until civilians were excluded from its use. Sometimes we would get a free lift in a large Bedford truck belonging to the Air Ministry.
In Birzebuggia, mum would buy her meat from Mr. Cameleri, the butcher. There were a few little shops for provisions, a shoe menders and bric a brac shops for ribbons and hair slides. Luckily, a tradesman with a donkey cart called at the house with fruit and vegetables, selling juicy water melons, oranges, bananas, grapes, tomatoes, potatoes and cabbages. Mum also bought spinach which Ginny and I didn鈥檛 like, although mum said it made Popeye the Sailor man very strong. I didn鈥檛 care, I didn鈥檛 want to be strong.
A baker also called with a large basket of bread and cakes. The cakes were very sweet and coated with icing sugar. At first we ate lots as we had been rationed during the war and sugar was difficult to get but we soon were sick of the sweetness.
There were no large shops nearby so my mother had to carry everything back from the village to the house. I suppose dad bought some of the heavier items from the NAAFI, a shop for the service people.

There was no rationing in Malta after the war. Malta had suffered much during the siege and the bombing and was awarded the George Cross for its bravery. Also there had been very little food available so Malta was allowed many of the luxuries that were still unavailable in England.

My mother bought extra provisions and stored them away in a cupboard so we could take them back to England when we returned. Sometimes we would play shops with them 鈥� tins of evaporated milk, Libby鈥檚, with pictures of cows on the labels, Carnation and Ideal milk, blue packs of sugar, tins of jam and sweetened condensed milk. Later she collected metal biscuit tins, filled them with her stores, and later crated them up to take them back to England on the ship.
Milk was not delivered so we had to use tinned milk which we diluted for ordinary use. I loved the condensed milk as it was very sticky and sweet. Sometimes we had it spread on bread or if mum wasn鈥檛 looking I鈥檇 lick the spoon.

At one time we had German prisoners of war working in our home. I think they were painting and decorating the rooms. My mother told me later that she had been very frightened during the war, that the Germans would conquer Britain and of what might happen. Here she was in Malta with the Germans working in her house! She could not believe it.
In their spare time the Germans made articles from Perspex, a see through 鈥減lastic.鈥� My mother was given a cigarette case etched with her name 鈥淚vy鈥� and decorated with flowers. Other items made for her from bakelite and Perspex were two photo frames. Sadly they have disappeared a long time ago. A pity, as when I visited the War Museum in Valetta in 1981 there were some exhibits similar to those made for my mother.

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