Part 4 of our interesting story of Vicky Rylance’s childhood experiences in Malta during WWII.
The air raids continued they became a part of our lives. Bombs were dropped indiscriminately; the main targets were around the Harbours – Valletta, Sliema, the ThreeCities and the Dockyard. Ta Qali, where there was an airport, was also targeted, which meant that Mosta faired badly, as well as other strategic areas. However, nowhere was really safe. Consequently, slowly but surely, over the next two years, these places were reduced to rubble with a great many civilian casualties. Even farmers working in their fields were strafed.
As buildings burst on impact, the streets became rivers of honey coloured Malta stone, with furniture, pictures, carpets, and other personal items jutting out incongruously here and there. As soon as possible, paths were cleared for passage through the debris, These narrow passage ways, were flanked on each side by mountains of yellow stone, giving the impression, particularly to a five year old child, of being in a canyon. However, many streets were impassable, particularly for vehicles, until the air raids eased in 1942.
We never did return to our house in Senglea. My father and an aunt braved the raids; they hired a truck, went over to Senglea and collected as much as they could of the furniture and possessions from the house. Later, during one of the big raids on the Grand Harbour when the HMS Illustrious limped in, the house received a direct hit. It was situated near the historic sixteenth century Senglea Parish Church, which was almost completely destroyed on the same day. On that day, the whole family wept with grief, not so much for the destruction of their house but of their beloved parish church.
Towns and villages in the centre of the Island became more and more overcrowded as ‘refugees’ – that is all those whose homes had been demolished in the raids – arrived and were found shelter. Many lost everything except the clothes they had on. The Government forcibly sequestered empty houses and resettled these refugees in them. Many moved in with relatives or close friends who lived inland. My family were known in our street, and indeed in the village, as ‘the refugees from Senglea’. I remember being very self conscious about this, particularly since we spoke with a different accent from the neighbours.
I hated going down into the Air Raid shelters: as soon as you entered the doorway, the foul smell of dankness mixed with that of unwashed humanity, hit your nostrils. The idea occurred to me, young as I was that if bombs fell on each of the two obligatory entrances, we would all be suffocated. This fear gave me what I know now to be claustrophobia from which I still suffer mildly to this day. This terrible thing did happen to a shelter in Mosta with a great loss of life.
Our family was very lucky. Our neighbours had a traditional old type Maltese house – a one storey structure with all the rooms built around a central courtyard. These people proposed to my father that with his help they could construct a shelter in their courtyard, which would be for our combined use.
The men worked very hard digging during every spare minute they had, while the women and children who were old enough, carried the rubble up in wicker shopping baskets. I remember my mother and my aunts doing this. My father then dug a further room off the original ‘corridor’ and constructed bunk beds for all of us, planks of wood supported by iron bars.
Every night when the siren shrilled its mournful warning that airplanes had been sighted, each adult – my parents and two aunts – would each grab a child wrapped in their blankets, and run with them into this shelter and stay there till the All Clear sounded. When the air raids increased in their intensity and frequency, it was decided that one of the aunts would take the children down the shelter at bedtime and settle them down there for the night, coming up again in the morning. My parents rarely came down into the shelter. My baby sister was always poorly and cried as soon as she was taken in the shelter. My mother felt this was disturbing the neighbours, so she stayed in the house with her and my father would not leave them alone, so he stayed up with them. I remember my parents saying that with the blast caused by the falling bombs, all the door knockers in the street would start knocking as the earth shook.
To be continued ……
Written by Vicky Rylance, Hon. Secretary Mellieha Group
