Extract by Manuel Casha
I was born at the very end of World War II, when Malta was starting its healing from the huge destruction the war had inflicted upon it. I was born in Birgu where my faded early impressions are of buildings, broken houses, and bomb craters which could be as deep as twenty feet and one had to be careful not to fall into, at the cost of life or limb.
As my family’s house in Birgu was close to the Dockyards, it was unsafe to live in, after the air raid damage it endured during the war, but like other survivors in the Cottonera region, that is all we had, so we had to contend with it. After my parents returned, as refugees from Birkirkara, to our place of abode in Vittoriosa (as Birgu is known officially), they tried to catch up with their lives. Many Maltese from the same region needed to restart from where they had left behind at that crucial time.
Of course, after the war there were Government Departments, among them the War Damage Department, which assessed buildings considered damaged or still standing to see if they were still safe for people to live in. They condemned our home as unfit to live in and so we were put on a list to be moved into another abode once one became available.
To cut a long story short, the War Damage Department found us a house in Rinella Street, in the neighbouring, suburb of Kalkara. The house number was 26 although it has changed since the war; I am not sure what it is now. But anyway, all that remains from that house is the facade, as new apartments have been built behind it. In this way, the streetscape has been preserved.
My family shifted there in the late Forties, possibly (1949). I was too young to remember living in Birgu, so my earliest memory of life was always connected with this fishing village blessed by a beautiful bay sometimes referred to as Kalkara Creek. It is hard to describe the Kalkara I lived in as a boy at that time to what it is today.
Rinella street, where we lived, was a main road connected to Bighi Hospital. This was a time when when Bighi Hospital was possibly the main Naval Hospital in Malta. I remember trucks and ambulances and other Army and Navy vehicles going up and down Rinella Street all day, covering also the two military forts in our area, Fort Ricasoli and Fort Saint Rocco. Fort St Rocco was closer to the Kapuċċini precincts of Kalkara. But nevertheless, they were both situated in the Kalkara region. Both forts were accessible from Rinella Street, but you had to drive or walk further through Rinella and past Wied Għammieq to reach Fort Saint Rocco.
I remember the vehicles at that time, trying to manoeuvre Rinella street from people and children in the middle of the road, by sounding an emergency bell, so that as children, we heard the emergency vehicles approaching and cleared the street. We then used to stop playing in the street and quickly switch to the sidewalk or “bankina” as we called it in Maltese. Of course, the frequency by which this happened was constant and although we used to kick a football in the street, we were always aware of the dangers of playing in this busy traffic artery.
I remember several accidents in my childhood where boys would get injured by being hit by a military or public vehicle or other. There were even instances – although rare – where the accidents were fatal.
Ambulances, Army lorries, military trucks, motorbikes and other military or emergency vehicles always had the right of way. After all they were there to save lives, however, on occasions, accidents did occur as they were rushing to hospital with an emergency patient on board. Of course, as children we were not always quick enough to get out of their way and accidents did happen, and older people will remember them from the past.
Much time has lapsed since and those who remember these times are fewer. I remember a time when the alarm bell on emergency vehicles was replaced by a siren. I also remember looking from the balcony at Rinella Street when an ambulance or a fire truck would come speeding up the street to deliver an injured person to Bighi Hospital. Yet many of us children still played in the street – which was a life hazard for us – but somehow, developed a survival sense which avoided us from getting injured or worse.
I remember us playing cricket in Rinella street. We would use wooden fruit boxes for the wickets which we would then have to quickly pick up and quickly shift them away from the oncoming vehicles. But as that is the space we had; we utilised it and somehow and generally survived the dangers until we grew a little older and took our games to Ix-Xatt (the Strand) which was a wide-open space.
We also played a lot of football at “l-Għalqa tal-Futbol” which has since been developed and there is not even a trace of what it used to look like. Of course, l-Għalqa tal-Futbol” served the young football generations of the Fifties and early Sixties. This also served the Navy as a helicopter pad where the British services brought in injured soldiers and sailors from military ships. Usually, they were brought in by helicopter which landed in the middle of the ground where they were met by an ambulance, ready to take the injured to Bighi Hospital, which was only five minutes away.
We later moved to the Fort Ricasoli area where we played football on the “Simenta”, a pitch with a concrete surface. I suspect the British services used this cemented area for their military drills. There might also have even been Anti-aircraft guns at some stage in the war years. We referred to this space as “Ditch Park”. Nowadays Kalkara has a fine football team and the club boasts of a state-of-the-art pitch with artificial turf and the very latest football facilities.
Later in life, my family shifted from Rinella street to St Michael Street where we lived in a building block known as “Tal-Isqof” (the Bishop’s). When we first settled there, I started looking for a friend to play football with. This problem was solved on the very first day when a young boy looked out from a street-level window of house No.1 and I invited him to kick a football together. That is when I met my lifetime friend Charles Flores. After that, Charles, my brother Joe and I would kick a ball every day, not infrequently to our neighbours’ annoyance, at times till sunset. Charles and I remained close friends since that day at St Michael Street. With time, the group grew bigger as other neighbouring boys would join us as we would split into two teams and compete against one another.
Our house at number 5 was to eventually become an unofficial young peoples’ club. We played all sorts of games in the front room but most of all Subbuteo table soccer. We were totally committed to the game and we knew we had started a trend at Kalkara and the rest of the Island with competitions like the SFA Cup organised, and miniature trophies awarded. Charles, my closest friend in Malta to this day, has written about this period at Kalkara in more detail, so it would be worth searching for his contributions on the Net or through his publications, mostly “Waqtiet Kalkariżi – għad-Dell tal-Kottonera” (Kalkara Moments – in the shadow of Cottonera, 2018).
In our time of living at St Michael Street, we not only discovered “Subbutteo table soccer, but also guitars, recording our music on a two-track tape recorder which Joe Said, another good friend, owned. This led to another area of discovery for us… music and song…! We played and recorded our compositions as we started a Hit Parade of them.
The creative side of our extended group at St Michael Street had no limit and we even finished up publishing our weekly publications, painstakingly hand-written and exchanged between all of us boys.
But that is for another time…
Thanks to Charles Flores.
