The 60s – history and reminiscences

As far as I am aware history ought to be based on fact. Reminiscences can at times take on the deep hues of tinted glasses. That said, even the writing of history should not be far from critical scrutiny.
The sixties in Malta still have to be competently researched and assessed. To some they take on the like of ‘The Brave Sixties’. To Archbishop Mgr. Michael Gonzi, who straddled the end of his time being charmed by the British, enjoying the respect due to a reputable ecclesiastic, enjoying the honour proper to a Brigadier-General owing to previous historical events, and combined with his fulfilling of onerous duties as the Ordinary of the R.C. Diocese, he came to clash with a new dawn of unknown beginnings. Perhaps his leanings towards exercising a dominant personality did not ease the course of events.
The Roman Catholic Church curia in Malta has been singled out many a time for criticism during the immediate pre and post-1964 events. Indeed, much water did pass under the bridge since then. It is fit to mention that the Maltese Jesuit province embarked upon a most useful study involving the ‘social environment appraisal’ with special reference to the religious aspects of life in Malta. The rather substantial ‘report’ was never meant to be made public. A copy came to me and I lent same to more than one member of the diocesan clergy. I dare presume that a copy found its place in the Library at the University. It more than deserves looking up even if now it has become perhaps more than dated in parts. As to the previous Fifties, it is quite true that they were far from these years that envelope us now. Yet, I leave it to readers to ask themselves whether we enjoy these days the dicta of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” to the extent that life enjoyment provokes us to organise spontaneous bouts of street dancing to celebrate the remembrance due to “Quatorze Juillet”.
The fact of the matter is that during the Fifties, all those who wanted to, could have called at the Bibliotheca in Valletta, and would have found an open door welcoming them to a section of handy open shelving, near the loggia in the main hall, offering a good mix of reading ranging from the adventures of Biggles to the humorous escapades of William and if one leaned towards some serious reading, the likes of George Bernard Shaw: for these and similar fare were all at hand and readily available.
I still remember enjoying ‘Man and Superman’ and ‘Mrs Waren’s Profession’. No ‘Index’ or some shade of it hovered over similar literary pleasures at the time, a good decade before the onset of the Sixties. Further, thanks to the good sense of a gentleman the like of Chev. Leopardi it became possible for me to borrow limitedly from mid-Saturday to the following Monday morning to read through “Malta and Me”, castigating Malta of the 1930s, the contents of which proved then cathartic to me. All that besides the serious reading provided by an array of contemporary reference paperbacks ably hard-bound by the staff of what was then known as the ‘Regia Bibliotheca Melitensis’. Delightful days that live only in memory of genuine past pleasures.
The post-1964 Independence quinquennial political doldrums recall a matter that seems hard to surface. During that intriguing time of apparent political calm and non-event up to 1971, it was noted that a ‘journalist’, presumed to be of Soviet origins, appeared unobstrusively busy on the Malta scene. As yet, after nearly half a century, both archives are infuriatingly bare and tight-lipped.

Anton Agius Muscat
St Julians