Malta is steeped in history, a history full of occupations and invasions. The Phoenicians, Romans , Arabs, Normans, Knights of St John, French, English and Italians (for Malta once belonged to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) have all left their mark, from words in our language down to cooking techniques. Maltese dishes resemble those of Middle Eastern and Italian cooking, but most dishes remain peculiar only to Malta in the taste of the final result.

 Life was a waiting game for me, we always seemed to be waiting. From a very young age I learned to wait, so I am now a very patient person. I remember when I was very young, my father was in the Air Force, he used to go to England to do some courses. Some times it took a year tbefor we saw him again. He would promise me and my brother that he would bring us something nice when he came back. Although we were very young me and my brother were always sad when we saw my father wearing his good uniform and filling his haversack with clothes. He would kiss us goodbye and off he would go on the truck. My mother always tried to keep us happy and busy playing when my father was away.

My mother used to take us to our grandparents every day. They didn't live far from us. When mum received letters from my father, where he would tell her when he was due back, we used to have a calender on which we used to mark off the days. But sometimes, dad would surprise us all. We would hear this big truck stop in front of the house, and mum, me and my brother would go running to the door, and there he would be, our dad, with the haversack on his shoulders smiling at us. We used to run to him kiss him and ask what he had brought for us. We didn't even give him a chance to get inside the house. Not only did we wait for our father a lot but also waited  for my mother's father.

My grandfather was in the Merchant Navy, and once when he came back from Gibraltar, he brought me this beautiful leather handbag. On the bag there were three camels printed and Palm trees. It was a very unusual handbag and I kept it for a long time He brought  my brother a soft toy, a little dog. It had a plastic pump or something so that when you pressed it the dog would jump, and me and my brother would jump with fright because we were afraid of it. When my grandfather was stationed in Malta he would come back from work and have his tea. Then he would take me and my brother out for a walk to the square and buy us some lollies. I was four years old at that time, and my brother was three years old. My grandparents used to have a dog named Judy. My grandfather used to bring cooked meat from the ship, and everyday he and I would go to the yard to feed the dog . My grandfather used to give some meat to the dog and some to me. I used to eat it , the meat was nice. Unfortunately that's all the memories I have of my grandfather, because he died at a young age on the way home from work on the bus. He had a heart attack and passed away as soon as they brought him home.

We used to live in a very small house. It only had two rooms, a small kitchen, toilet, and a small yard. The first room was a dinning room. It consisted of a very big table, six chairs, sideboard , and a big showcase, were my mother used to keep her china and dinner set. The furniture in this room was painted in a cream colour. The next room was a bedroom with a double bed, wardrobe, side tables and dressing table, and a cot on each side of the double bed.

I still remember my mother's mattress. It was a straw mattress and in summer my mother used to air the straw, she would put it in a big tub, and me and my brother used to have a feast with the straw pulling it apart , and then in the afternoon the straw would go back into the cover which had been washed by hand. It was a lot of work but every body seemed to be happy. We had no fridges, no cookers, no washing machines, no heaters.  My mother used to keep the milk in a bowl with water so it wouldn't go off,  other things she would have to buy every day.

We used to have a little yard ,with a chook pen so me and my brother used to go in the pen and collect the eggs every day. We had a vine tree in the yard and in the summer it used to be full of small lizards crawling and wiggling their tail  One day while I was in the chook pen, collecting the eggs, there was a great commotion. My mother was in the yard doing some washing. Suddenly I heard her scream. I was frightened because she sounded so upset. I came rushing out of the chook pen, scattering the chooks out of the way, and there I saw her  frantically trying to brush off one of these lizards that had landed on her shoulder. She was screaming the whole time and the chooks were going crazy, finally it hit the dirt and she stamped her foot heavily on the poor lizard and ended its life, its body squashed into the tiles like a mosaic. She caused quite a fuss that day, the neighbours wanted to know what had happened to her as they thought that something happened to us kids but mum assured them that nothing had happened to us and told them about the lizard. They just laughed .

I remember everybody used to come and knock on the door to buy things. Fish is very popular in Malta and being a Mediterranean Island various kinds of fish are available throughout the different seasons. Lampuki , Yellow tail fish, are amongst the most popular. They are migrating fish and are in season from mid-August till November. Fisherman or their wives sell their catch by going round through main residential areas, with cries of Fish !Fish! knocking on the doors of their regular customers.

We used to go and get fresh bread. Maltese bread is very tasty indeed. Traditionally the dough is formed into round loaves and then marked down the middle with a knife, which provides the typical appearance when baked, of one side being slightly higher and darker in colour with the lower part of the loaf golden in colour. The traditional oven runs on wood which always produces much tastier bread.

The man who sold vegies and fruit would come around, park his horse on the corner and lay all his fruit and vegies out for display. He would put his hand to the side of his mouth, and cry out all the specials of the day, and people would come out of their homes to buy and gossip at the same time.
I remember this old lady who had some goats, and sometimes she used to come around knocking on our door asking mum if she would like to buy some goat's milk. Mum would bring a large brown jug, and the lady would fill the jug with warm fresh milk. The lady would milk the goat in front of you. The goat used to have a little bell tinkling around her neck but was very dirty and smelly. When the old lady left mum had to get the broom and sweep the goats dropping off the pavement.

There was also a man with a horse who sold kerosene for the primus. He had a lot of different sized cans, so when we went out with our cans and for a gallon or a gallon and a half he would know how much to give us. He used to have different sizes of funnels too, to go with different shapes of cans. My grandmother didn't have a fridge, a man with a van used to come selling blocks of ice. Granny would buy a block of ice for sixpence which she would put in a little ice box to keep the food fresh. If I happened to be at my grandmothers place, I always used to go after gran, and ask the man for a piece of ice, he would chop a small piece with an axe and give it to me. Nowadays nothing of this exist, everything has changed and everything is modern, and people are a lot more educated.

My mother was also a good knitter and in winter she used to knit for me these beautiful woollen dresses and when she used to do my hair mum would always put these nice bows on each side of my hair. When I grew a bit older mum used to knit  me nice jumpers and my auntie would make me nice pleated skirts to go with the jumpers. In summer my auntie also made me nice nylon dresses in pastel colours. I used to have nearly every colour. At that time my hair was long so mum would plait my hair and again put bows on each side. Of course being well groomed in those days was not easy. At that time we had no hot water or baths. Mum would fill a big drum with water that had to be heated on the primus. After it started boiling, mum would bring this plastic tub, put some water in it and then add the hot water. She would wash my hair every Saturday  and after she finished with me mum would start washing my brother.

When I was about seven years old we moved into a bigger house, around the corner from the one we were living in. Times were changing now. This was the end of my being the spoilt precious little girl. My mother was having her third child. Mum always had the babies at home. I remember when the third baby was due. It was about seven o'clock at night. Me and my brother were sent to our grandmother's and stayed there till the next day. My mother put a pot of minestrone soup in a cane basket, and I was told not to shake the basket because it would go all over the place. Mum told me to tell my grandmother to warm it up for us, to have for tea. Next day when we went back home we found a new born baby. It was a girl, my second sister, whom we named  Dorothy. I was a bit jealous at first because she was getting all the attention but after a while I got used to my baby sister.

That year everything was happening. Mum and dad bought some new things for the house. Mum got a new washing machine and dad bought a new TV and a fridge. These three things made life easier for the family. Mum didn't have to wash clothes by hand any more, so she had more time for us to take us out.

I started going to school. It was a private school called Immaculate Conception. It was run by the nuns. We used to have grey uniform, white blouse, blue hat, blue coat, and a grey and red striped tie. We had a small badge on the uniform, and a white apron to wear at school. I never liked school, but I used to try so hard. I was doing allright but since I was a little girl I always liked sewing, so when I was ten years old mum started  sending me to learn sewing and I liked it very much so I kept learning.

When we moved to the new house mum used to let us play outside and there used to be about ten kids in the street and we used to play this game called 'Queeny Queeny were is the ball. I haven't got it. Were is it.?' The rule of the game was that one kid would stand at the front with their back turned with all the others standing behind. The one at the front would throw the ball and who ever caught the ball would hide it and it was really funny because we used to hide the ball in strange places like under jumpers between our legs and all sort of places and when we finished hiding the ball we all start screaming, "Queeny Queeny were is the ball. I haven't got it were is it?" I used to scream so much that my mum used to come out of the balcony and tell me not to scream so much because I was waking up the babies.

I can't remember any more of my childhood so I am going to close the story of my childhood memories. Memories, and dreams of childhood remind me of who I once was and how far I have come. It reminds me of how thing have changed in our society. It's nice to remember the past.
 
 
 
 

Mary L (1996)