It must have been in the late fifties or early sixties that my Air Force duties took me to Malta and I stood on the Upper Baracca and surveyed an almost empty Grand Harbour. There were a handful of British warships at their moorings and I observed the red and white St George's Cross of an admiral at the mainmast of the largest vessel-a cruiser.
I remarked to my companion that it was so sad that our navy had been reduced to a cruiser serving as a flagship but today as we approach the end of the century the Royal Navy can not even muster a single operational cruiser on which an admiral could fly his flag - though no doubt that it has enough admirals to man a ship of that size.
'Twas not always so. Sixty years back as a schoolboy in Malta I once counted no less than eight battleships and battle cruisers in the Grand Harbour itself or in French Creek. Heavy cruisers lay up in the Marsa whilst light cruisers were moored stem to stern alongside the Barbary Shore of Dockyard Creek.
Nearest to the harbour entrance was to be seen an aircraft carrier and sometimes it was the "Eagle" whose loss when succouring Malta in the Second World War was sad. Her attendant destroyer (whose function was to rescue airmen who failed to land on the flight deck of the "Eagle") could be seen in Rinella Creek directly between the naval hospital of Bighi with its majestic portals and my own home in Fort Ricasoli. Aircraft carriers were always moored near the entrance in case the north east Gregale gale ensued, blowing up so quickly and directly into the harbour entrance and the unwieldy slab-sided vessel could, if necessary, rapidly put to sea.
There was only the one destroyer moored in Grand Harbour as a rule but there were plenty in Marsamxett Harbour on the other side of Valletta along with submarines, depot ships and minesweepers. Dotted about the creeks of the main anchorage were smaller vessels such as the "Chrysantheum", fleet photgraphic and survey vessel, a sloop of the First World War on which I attended several parties as a relative of mine served aboard. To this day she remains as a training ship in Kings Reach of the Thames observed with affection whenever I visit London.
Visiting Malta today, I never miss a vist to the Baracca to look out over a less warlike Grand Harbour (for even Malta's small armed vessels are based in Pieta Creek beneath that uniquely castellated gardjola overlooking Marsamxett). Merchant ships are now the inhabitants of the five creeks of Grand Harbour though occasionally a visting foreign warship can be seen alongside the new Lascaris Wharf below Valletta's bastions.
On the promontory of St Angelo flies today another red and white flag but it is the banner of the island Republic of Malta itself with its George Cross on the white field. There is talk of another red and white flag being displayed there, the saltire of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta for it was there at St Angelo and the Three Cities behind it that the Order withstood the Great Siege of 1565 and the Knights of Malta may be permitted to reoccupy it.
Sometimes I move to the Lower Baracca nearer the Harbour entrance and beyond to the Siege Bell, a memorial to those who lost their lives in running wartime convoys to Malta. This of course is relatively new to me though it enhances, whilst remaining in keeping with, the outline of that part of Valletta. From there I get a closer view of Rinella Bay where I taught myself to swim all those years ago - but then, since I also used to sail around the harbour, every part of it has special memories for me.
E-mail to Peter Prictoe: rinella@cableinet.co.uk
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