Stories from Malta is a bits-and-pieces episode to finish off our Valletta series. We start with a little descriptive writing, factual and fictional, followed by the stories of 4 people who’ve featured in previous episodes but not really had the time they deserve: St Paul, St Publius, Caravaggio and Daphne Caruana Galizia, the high-profile journalist murdered for her stand against corruption in Malta. And to finish, 4 literary extracts, namely a historical novel and a mystery story, both set in Malta and both 2 World War II love stories. As usual, this is a summary and you’ll find more info and fuller extracts on the podcast.
Great descriptive writing
The blogpost 5 Things That Are Totally Unique to Malta certainly entices you to visit the island and aspects the author missed while away include ‘the sinfully delicious smell of pastizzi wafting down every main street and the friendly, loud “Orrajt, kif ahna?” (translation: how are you?”) booming out of the shop owners’ mouths when visiting any establishment’. Early in the novel The Kappillan of Malta by Nicholas Monserrat is a wonderful description of Valletta on the morning of June 11th, 1941. It’s just another day …. until it isn’t, because the first bombs of World War II are dropped on the island and the peace is shattered. The description of an ‘ordinary day’ includes these lines.
‘The late fishermen were going one way, down to the harbour ….. shop-keepers were slamming back their barred doors and rolling down the bamboo curtains which softly replace them … priests crossing a slit of sunshine in a narrow street passed businessmen who predictably kept to the shadows.’
‘Silversmiths marshalled their array of tiny hammers and balanced them in stiff hands; lace-makers picked up once more the intricate threads of life and labour. Goats were being milked from door to door, as obliging as village taps.’
Also on the podcast, an 18th century visitor’s description of the knights firing ‘a great quantity of canon balls, shells or other deadly materials’ at would-be invaders and, from Ladies of Lascaris by Paul McDonald, a description of wartime Straight Street in Valletta, which begins ‘The Gut, a long, narrow avenue of honky-tonks, bars and eating houses ….. is known to sailors the world over.’
4 true Stories from Malta
The story is told in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 28, of how St Paul was shipwrecked off Malta in AD 60, swam to shore and found the island inhabited: ‘’And the people who lived there showed us great kindness, and they made a fire and called us all to warm ourselves.” He stayed for three months, living in a café now called St Paul’s Grotto, preaching, converting and baptising. That is how Christianity came to Malta.
You will keep coming across the name Publius. It was in his house that Paul is said to have spent his first 3 nights on the island. When Paul cured his father of a fever, Publius became a Christian and before Paul left the island he ordained Publius as the first Bishop of Malta.
The artist Caravaggio was wanted for murder, when he arrived in Malta, but was accepted as a Knight, in return for which he painted the work you can still see today in the oratory of St John’s Cathedral in Valletta, The Beheading of St John. But, on the day before the work was to be unveiled, Caravaggio assaulted a senior Knight and was jailed. He escaped from Fort St Angelo down a sheer 200 ft cliff and into a boat in which he sailed away to Sicily. In his absence, he was officially de-frocked, or in the words from the time, ‘expelled and thrust forth like a rotten and diseased limb from our Order and Society.”
That was the end of Caravaggio in Malta. Still a fugitive, he tried to make it to Rome to secure a pardon, but there were more violent skirmishes and he died, aged 38, before he could get there. A description written during one of his many court cases leaves a dramatic impression: ‘This painter is a stocky young man…with a thin black beard, thick eyebrows and black eyes, who goes dressed all in black, in a rather disorderly fashion, wearing black hose that is a little bit threadbare, and who has a thick head of hair, long over his forehead’.
Daphne Caruana Galizia was a journalist and blogger who dug out many stories of political corruption and money-laundering in Malta, some of which implicated top politicians. After decades of intimidation and threats, she was killed in October 2017 by a bomb planted under her car. Although there have been prosecutions, the Justice for Daphne campaign continues because it’s clear that not everyone involved has been held accountable. Her story has been written up in a book, Death in Malta, by her son Paul Caruana Galicia, described by one reviewer as ‘An unforgettable profile of courage; that of a journalist who risked her life to hold power and corruption to account.’
There is a memorial to her on Republic Street, along the side of St John’s Cathedral and among the flowers, candles and photographs, you can read some of her own words, for example: ‘Freedom of expression is precious and opposition to government oppression is essential.’
Literary Extracts
One plotline in The Kappilan of Malta involves Marija, the Kapillan’s niece, who has fallen in love with a young airman stationed there during the war. He’s been away for nearly 4 months when he unexpectedly rings her to say he’s back and suggests they meet the next morning. ‘What other answer could there be but yes, though a hundred problems stood in the way. She spent a sleepless night in delirious joy, ecstatically glad to know that he was here, planning exactly what she would say and do this time, thanking God and the compassionate Virgin.’
The love affair in Ladies of Lascaris, the True Story of Christina Ratcliffe actually happened. Christina, in Malta to work as a cabaret dancer, was recruited as an aircraft plotter during World War II and fell in love with a photo reconnaissance pilot, Adrian Warburton, or ‘Warby’. The scene described here probably really happened. Warby survived this time, but on a later sortie, he was indeed lost at sea, presumed killed and Christina never saw him again.
‘Then Christina heard the words from the filter room she’d hoped never to hear in her headpiece.
‘Plot on Stallion Two-Seven faded,’
Her heart thumped. But she was determined not to show the tension she felt inside.
‘Plot on Stallion Two-Seven faded’, she repeated.
The Senior Controller’s face was grim, fearing the worst. Christina was having the utmost difficulty carrying on. But she had to. Personal feelings didn’t count in this game. She knew what this meant. Her Warby had been ‘bumped’. It was the end.
Secrets of Malta by Cecily Blench is a spy story revolving around a young singer in a Valletta nightclub. One key scene takes place at the Grand Harbour in Valletta on the day in June 1943 when King George VI arrived to visit Malta. It’s based on a real event, but adapted so that it appears here as part of an attempt to kill the monarch. Margarita, the heroine, who knows about the plot, watches His Majesty’s ship arriving through binoculars from her viewpoint in Upper Barrakka Gardens.
‘She saw a lone figure, dressed all in white. He was tall and thin, standing very erect. Now and then he raised an arm to salute the crowds who lined the harbour, but mostly he stared straight ahead. The Royal Standard blew out behind him in the stiff breeze, its rich colours contrasting with the pale uniform.’
One review for The Hidden Palace by Dinah Jefferies, describes it as an ‘escapist historical novel of World War II, set in Malta’, and continues that ‘ it’s engrossing and sensual, full of the heat of the Mediterranean sun’. Another reviewer describes the book as ‘powerful, passionate and profoundly moving and says that ‘this compelling mix of love and tragedy vibrates with warmth and pain, and captures the intense dislocation of war’.
Listen to the podcast
REading Suggestions
2 Books on Daphne Caruana Galizia’s Story
A Death in Malta by Paul Caruana Galizia
A Sunny Place for Shady People by Ryan Murdock
Caravaggio A Life Sacred and Profane by Andrew Graham Dixon
The Lives of Caravaggio by Julio Mancini
The Kappillan of Malta by Nicholas Monserrat
Ladies of Lascaris by Paul McDonald
Secrets of Malta by Cecily Blench
The Hidden Palace by Dinah Jeffries
links for this post
Short Lets Malta blog
Previous episode Easy Day Trips from Valletta
This is the last episode in our Valletta series
Last Updated on February 13, 2025 by Marian Jones
