For all it’s worth, Lorry Sant produced the envelope containing the photos on Wednesday, 18 December, 1991, the last day of the 1992 budget debates.

[Daphne – Hi Mark, thanks for that. I knew it was late 1991 because we had moved house that summer and I have this mental image of Saviour Balzan and Wenzu Mintoff sitting in my kitchen talking about it when it had just happened. And I knew it had to be before the 1992 elections because Wenzu Mintoff wasn’t in parliament after that, and I don’t think Sant was either. So it’s good to have the exact date.]

Actually you’re not correct there. I distinctly remember Mintoff, Lorry and a couple of other hangers on trotting by every Sunday at the Marsascala promenade. My grandmother lived there and we used to visit on Sundays, sit in her balcony and watch Malta’s king trot by..

I was also a pupil worker at the time and worked for a pittance in a government department. I was 16 years old and one day this man walks in, stands at the counter and gets out a hand gun.

He brought out a small piece of cloth and started cleaning his gun. He explained that he had come for service at this department. I practically pissed in my pants and everyone laughed at me because I did not know who Fusellu was.

I could tell you a lot more about those times.

Any sniper would confirm that it is that much harder to aim a sniper rifle through its use a telescopic gunsight on a figure running up the Castille stairs.

Does it ocur to you that Mintoff could have been both someone who, as a rule, had his way but who, exceptionally, was himself subject to blackmail by others?

I know definitely who masterminded the particular bomb that was planted on my doorstep and the henchmen who actually detonated that bomb.

The former was an MLP cabinet minister and the latter were recruited from the Marsa MLP club.

I identified the MLP minister by name to the court-appointed expert in the presence of members of the DIK (CID to you) who immediately left the room to inform their superior and who instructed me to hold myself ready to be interrogated by their inspector.

The identity of the culprits was later confirmed to me in confidence by a serving policeman who supplied me with more details.

I am still waiting to be interrogated by some CID inspector many, many years after that minister went to meet his creator.

That’s all irrelevant. Let me spoonfeed you:

Did you vote PN or AD in 1992? If you voted AD you voted for Wenzu Mintoff’s party. Which made you a fleeting Mintoffjana.

Now who was it? Pappi Azzopardi? Or was it Salvu Balzam? Surely not Arnie.

[Daphne – It’s amazing how you always change the subject when you have to deal with questions about your marriage to a rancid Mintoffjana, Kevin. And no, I don’t mean that Sharon is rancid, but her politics certainly are. You have this air about you of being so cool and liberal, and then look at your real choices.]

So you were indeed a Mintoffjana in 92. I could have sworn you voted PN.

[Daphne – I come from one of the leading Mintoff-despising families in the island, Kevin. It would be indeed difficult to consider me a Mintoffjana. One of Mintoff’s earliest and most tragic confrontations was with my grandfather in 1973. He was president of the National Bank of Malta at the time. I don’t suppose Mintoff ever imagined then that he was about to create the ‘monster’ that would, as a direct result, grow up to become one of the biggest thorns in the Labour Party’s side. Mintoff knew it, which is why I pissed him off so much before he went senile. And now I’m the one who’s pissed off because he’s senile and can’t read all this. It’s infuriating. Well, at least I get to see him off. I hope.]

Let me see, that was nearly two decades ago. I guess you could have called me a Mintoffjan, yes, since I had just voted AD.

What about you, Deffney? Where you also a Mintoffjana back in 92?

[Daphne – Hmmm. Is that your wife I see coming up right behind him? I’m sure it’s not because she’s a gerontophiliac, Kevin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEvOLb8VE_g ]

St Michael’s occupied the same premises Marks and Spencer’s does today. We used to go to shop there. I remember the supermarket being closed down but I am not clear when that was – could have been 1971ish.

[Daphne – It’s the same company. Marks and Spencer (the original owners) used the brand name St MIchael’s. But Marks & Spencer dropped it for the M & S brand instead. At the Ferries they had a supermarket downstairs and the clothes were sold on the first floor. It was Malta’s first and only supermarket at the time, and in fact ended up known as ‘Supermarket’ (without the definite article). A typical exchange between two Sliema children/teens: “Where did you buy that top?” “From Supermarket.” Or my mother: “Xtrajta minghand is-Supermarket.”. The operating company’s name is actually Supermarkets (1960) Ltd. When the various bans, import substitution hassles and bulk-buying problems began, the food supermarket side of the business was shut down and that floor was given over to clothes as well. The clothes came in on a quota (and you have to see the quota descriptions issued by the government to believe them: “Men’s short-sleeved shirts in polyster”; “Women’s knitted tops”, that kind of thing – and so the stock changed rarely and was very limited.]

What I do remember is that during the same time or earlier there was some land reclamation project going on at the Ferries. I don’t know which government was running the country then.

I distinctly remember mum at the shops with her ration cards for sugar, oil and a few other things. Her regular grocer had a tap and my brother and I used to watch the oil ooze out of the tap into bottles. To us, it was a game; however, I cannot shake that feeling of impending doom I felt those days.

[Daphne – Yes, I know. I used to have to go and pick up ‘the ration’ from Muse Falzon the grocer on the corner of Howard and Amery Streets. That’s how I know Michael Falzon the Labour MP. He and his younger brother Silvio are my contemporaries and they grew up in the shop where they did their homework under their mother’s watchful eye. I always got an earful about this because I never did mine if I could help it.]

The factory you are talking about eventually became Consolidated Biscuits and, in the mid/late 80s, was taken over by some corporation from Barbados. Prior to that I think it was where Catch was manufactured. In our state of deprivation, Catch was actually good chocolate.

I remember my father returning from overseas trips with toys (Legos), chocolate, toothpaste and the like. He used to place all his dirty underwear on top of all his clothes to make sure that no one rummaged through his goodies.

[Daphne – Oh yes, I remember that dirty socks and underpants game. I still think of it with as much humour as I can muster each time I pack my bags for the trip back home.]

Gross by today’s standards but those were the times and I rub my eyes in disbelief when I hear phrases like il PN kissru pajjiz and we were better off then. Agreed that there are serious problems today and there are severe inflationary burdens on each one of us; yet, aren’t we all unrestrained amidst choice?