The consummate pleasure of Henty, dear God! Anthony Buckeridge’s Jennings books, graduating to Biggles. Is anyone familiar with Joseph E. Chipperfield -another source of reading pleasure ? Id-Dinja ta’ Wenzu U Rożi accidentally discovered in an uncle’s desk in Zabbar…..

My childhood menories are mostly of passionate, avid, insatiable reading, and of football matches in the street, sometimes with a ball made of rags sewn together by a blind old great-aunt. Frustratingly we would have to stop the game to stop every 20 minutes or so, because of a passing car. Kite-flying on the roof-top, too, was a popular pastime down our way. One balmy early evening I counted 38 kites hovering overhead……..

Jo, what memories! What about jumping off il-Kamra tal-Wied, or from above the Ghar, into the Skall? What about the times in the early 1970s when all summer residents at Wied, like we were, used to bring out their ‘spiritieri’ togeher and wait for the men to come up from the sea with catches of makku, gambli zghir and vopi, and everyone used to eat together pulpetti tal-makku and vopi with bread?

Wied Babu, Hagar Qim, il-Munqar, Wied il-Fulija, which was one of the most beautiful valleys in Malta until the MLP made it into a rubbish dump, Hal-Far airfield, glorious and abandoned with derelict planes, we had it all. We used to roam far and wide with bicycles.

Many a time we compared ourselves to William. We ere lucky, and we are all the better for it. Our children can’t dream of it let alone experience it.

No picking on Walter the Softie?

Connolly will explain it for me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWMEAURoAXs

I (would like to) think that Meli’s just taking the piss.

Playing in the streets was the norm, because there was hardly any traffic. Our legs were bloodied from the many falls and we slept we stuck to the sheets.

We had a bath once a week, the four of us in two inches of cold water and a kettle of boiling water to warm it up for economy and to get us ready in a jiffy. A see-through towel used to dry us all. Our lips used to be purple with cold while we shivered and our mother hugged the four of us together with love and called us her chicks.

Only a couple of families had TV so whenever there were films we children loved, such as Rin Tin Tin and Lassie, we were allowed to gather at a kind neighbour’s. And there were no sitting-rooms untouched by humans. Our house was a true home.

This is not to say that there was no jealousy. A neighbour broke the poles of a Badminton game which I owned and which was a rarity at the time, giving no reason except that at our age we shouldn’t be playing with such ‘games’, because they were too expensive and therefore a sin.

Check out Joseph Meli’s anti-divorcist comments http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090831/local/pm-presented-with-anti-divorce-report

“But then I just said the those of the Christian faith are in a majority and when it comes to voting, that makes the difference.
Well divorce does makes a difference as it is against our religion, and if you want to do other things such as live with another person, that is on you, not on my shoulders…if our Christian law says that it’s sinful to divorce, how do one expect to go for it.”

This guy doesn’t realise that it’s the PM who is in government and that Parliament makes our laws – apparently he thinks the Bishop’s our PM and that the Vatican the legislator!

He should really go live in the Philippines!