With the sad passing away of Lino Bugeja at the venerable age of 86, the Cottonera has lost a true and worthy son. He was first and foremost an educator to numerous generations of students, but he was also a committed environmentalist, a great sportsman, a top-rated communicator, researcher and award-winning journalist. Birgu, his birthplace, was always in his heart, but the whole of Cottonera and Kalkara also enjoyed the fruits of his intellectual labour.
I can vouch for all that, as I had a very special rapport with the learned man, literally from my childhood. You see, I had been (my better half says I still am) so bad at Maths that my parents thought that a series of private lessons in the subject would help get me through my Lyceum entrance exam, then a national prerogative. Their choice fell on Lino Bugeja whose track record in the field was second to none. I remember walking all the way from Kalkara to Birgu, where he lived with his family, full of dread. I did not know the term then, but I can now say that in my case it was complete mental blockage as regards the subject.
Lino was not easy to get used to. He was tough-talking, tolerated no nonsense during the one-hour lesson, and, as was still the accepted convention at that time between the late 50s and the start of a new decade, wont to resort to light corporal punishment when the situation got out of hand with some of us. Nothing really serious, mere pokes at the back of the head or the shoulders, things we still see jokingly taking place in such popular TV series as NCIS, but much to our parents’ delight, we were all terrified of him.
When the lesson was over, Lino Bugeja switched to a new mode, making himself much more accessible to students wanting to ask questions, and exchanging football banter in which I normally played ball, to use an instant metaphor. There was a time for work and there was a time for leisure, a timeless lesson to every emerging generation. I had just one advantage over the rest of the class – my dad had been the one to somehow convince Lino to move from his beloved Vittoriosa Stars to St George’s of Bormla, then absolute, resolute, bitter rivals.
Needless to say, the Lino Bugeja magic did not work on me. I failed my Maths exam, probably his only failure in the subject, in contrast to my high marks in language. Then a hiatus. Lino continued to pursue his life’s sundry occupations in education, sports, research and journalism, while I trudged into secondary territory at a private institution. We never crossed paths again until I went into journalism and he was still active, though creeping towards official (for he never did so unofficially) retirement.
Somehow, though, my surviving memory was that of the severe teacher with a penchant for gentle head butts mixed with my irrational hatred of Maths. So when, as was the Christmas and Carnival custom in the early 70s, our Sports Writers team was to play the Football Coaches’ team at the Marsa sports ground, I knew those parallel lines were about to meet again after so many years. Lino Bugeja and I suddenly came face to face, finally as equal adults, on that soggy rugby/soccer field – he as casual and warm as he could be when shaking my hand and me full of a young man’s anger.
The ice was crudely broken at the starting whistle. We immediately ran into each other, battering our knees in the very first minute of play, with Lino falling to the ground cringing in pain, and yours truly trying to look as innocent as was possible given the ugly physical clash of bones. Lino had to call it a day, while I continued to play in what turned out to be a massacre of the innocents (a real innocent this time) as the coaches were by far superior physically and certainly fitter.
The whole episode, however, heralded a new phase in our relationship. It became friendship. Lino used to enjoy telling me stories involving my dad, but he was also already visualising the threat to the environment during the 70s building boom. We became colleagues in the world of Maltese journalism where, thankfully, there was hardly ever any need for Maths!
Lino Bugeja’s later career saw him becoming a much sought after spokesman for the environmentalist lobby, especially after the success of his Ramblers Association. He was a true gentleman-environmentalist, unlike the few posers we have, alas, in an otherwise strong lobby, wasting people’s time and money. Lino was eloquent in his condemnation of unwise and unsustainable development, but he would never criticise on the basis of his or other people’s political beliefs. He was completely colour-blind when it came to discussing the environment and countless politicians have, over the years, felt the brunt of his criticism on radio, TV, the print media and public gatherings.
His contribution in the fields of education, sports, history, the environment, Birgu and the Cottonera, will not be lost with his sad demise. It will be his legacy, a monumental bequest to this nation he loved so dearly.
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Oops-a-daisy...
This column has been vociferous in its appeal to the Nationalist Opposition to agree to start a new chapter as regards the country’s energy policy. The switch to gas from the horrible source of heavy fuel oil was a mainstay of the Labour manifesto in the 2013 general election and was approved by a record majority of voters.
To bury its head in the sand and refuse to accept the mistakes of the past in the sector were part of a failed political strategy that should not have been in Simon Busuttil’s party transformation book. Oops-a-daisy, the inevitable has now happened with the European Commission approving, after no less than two years of investigation, the financing for the new gas power station at Delimara.