There was no ban, but there might as well have been because people didn’t have the money to leave the country, and even if they did, exchange control restrictions made it very difficult. Also, access to the world outside does not mean travel necessarily. Most of our access to the world outside now comes through the internet and satellite/cable television. Back then, we didn’t have those things and people who lived working-class lives in Malta were completely cut off. They couldn’t even read a foreign newspaper or magazine because they didn’t have the language skills even if they could be bothered, which they could not.

I don’t care what Mintoff did to Sant, they both deserved each other, but hell, why is Franco doing this?

Can’t anybody at HQ get rid of him once and for all?

Why doesn’t he do us all a favour, just pack his things and emigrate to Timbuktu?

Blush? Irid ikollok iz-zejt f’ wiccek biex tisthi l-ewwel. Dawk wicchom qieghed jew qaghad ghal kollox.

Mhux kull ma jleqq hu deheb kont nismaghhom jghidu.

“no idea of the world outside”

Are you implying there was a ban on outbound travel?

Pity they were North Koreans and couldn’t be promoted after 1987.

He can f**k off to Italy for all I care. They seem to have a penchant for smug w**kers.

I vote to have Daphne’s reply engaved on a slab of marble and turned into a national monument. That’s the best summary ever of our history after independence. Up yours, Dominic Fenech.

Adam and Eve lived with less then the basic essentials, shared an apple and were forbidden to think for themselves under pain of punishment .

Yet they thought they were in the Garden of Eden.

Malta was just like that in the Golden Mintoff/KMB era.

Can anyone imagine having babies in the pre-1987 era and managing to lay hands on formula milk, disposable nappies and baby food only if you knew the agent or a middle-man and paid extra for the “pjacir”? UNBELIEVABLE BUT TRUE.

Daphne,
this ‘problem’ is accentuated in your prolific days, when missing your blog for just 24 hours means some articles quickly disappear out of the blog.