Talking about violence and police officers, one policeman beat me with a chain in those days when a report would have been of no use, and that, for trying to divert his attention away from the old couple he was continuing to kick even when they fell to the floor. I will never forget neither face nor number.

ma tantx kien jidher sarkastiku. peress li hawn min lest ibiddel l-istorja ta’ Malta kif tghogob lilu biss. Diga qed naraw l-istorja politika ta’ Malta tinqaleb ta’ taht fuq. Qisu Fenech Adami ma farrakx lil Mintoff f’zewg elezzjonijiet generali. Qisu l-labour ghadu fil-gvern. Qisu Mintoff qatt ma ttradixxa lil MLP meta kien fil-Gvern. L-uniku ragel li hareg bl-unuri huwa Alfred Sant ghax ma mexiex ta’ ipokrita. Dejjem kien onest. U ma tax gieh lil dak li farraklu l-gvern immexxi minnhu. missu jisthi l-MLP.

Fusellu was in charge of the operation and the smiling policemen (yes, smiling) were encouraging the attackers.

What a horrible scene – and I mean the police attitude.

This they insisted upon even when these policemen remarked that there were people inside the building.

Now of course someone would remark that this too is a lie.

[Daphne – No, I will say something else: what sort of policemen were they, that they asked for permission to stop a crime of such great magnitude? Cowards all. I don’t know how they can live with themselves. Maltese culture makes me sick. It’s a bloody good thing that Malta didn’t fall to the Nazis, because we would have had a population of collaborators and SS guards and nobody actually in the camps.]

I know as a fact that Labour sympatisers working at The Times kept away from their place of work that fateful evening by reporting sick.