Dr Albert Ganado’s name is synonymous with Valletta and the Melitensia. He says, “I have lived in Valletta for practically all my life – indeed I only lived away from Valletta when we moved to Rabat during the war, and for a brief time after I got married, property was hard to come by in Valletta, so my wife and I lived in an apartment in Floriana. My first school was St Joseph’s High School run by the nuns of Zachary Street. It was exactly opposite the grocery. I received my primary education at St Joseph.

“At St Joseph, Italian was taught by an Italian nun, English by an English nun and so forth. Fortunately, this continued for the rest of my education. I believe wholeheartedly in this method of instruction and I wish it were more implemented today. After St Joseph, at just nine years old, I started my Lyceum education. I consciously enrolled in the Lyceum at such an early age. Basically, in those days, the university law course accepted new students once every three years. I grew up in a legal environment; my father was a judge, as was my grandfather and various uncles, both paternal and maternal, were involved in the legal profession. Therefore I aspired to be a lawyer from an early age. My father knew that the next law course opened in 1939 and by entering the Lyceum in 1933 I was ensuring that I would enter the law course in 1939, thus preventing a futile three years, waiting for the course to re-open. However, before I could actually enter this law course, I had to pass my matriculation exam. And here I must say that the merit is not all mine. I remember not doing so well in a couple of exams when I was a youngster – probably because I was too busy playing to study and because of a general lack of concentration. Luckily, I had an older sister, who had just sat for her matriculation exam. This sister tutored me and was my driving force during these difficult exams.”

Soon after Dr Ganado entered university, war broke out. For the first two years, lectures continued as usual, but then the bombing accelerated. German stukas flew above, so the law courts moved to Balzan. Dr Ganado says that they, the students, followed the law courts.

“The professors had to be close to the law courts, to be able to practise and teach. We followed them there and I recall the Agricultural Department gave us a room to hold our lectures in. The war brought with it its own amusements. I remember, once, Professor Caruana Galizia was delivering a lecture on civil law. It was a lovely spring day and Professor Caruana Galizia suggested that we go to San Anton Gardens to continue our lecture. We went to the gardens and while listening to the lecture we were paid a visit by Lord Gort, the governor at the time. This was not my only encounter with Lord Gort. Another time, some fellow students and I were going home to Rabat after lectures, but we found ourselves stranded on the Rabat road. Due to the fuel shortages there were absolutely no cars in the streets and so we could not get a lift with anyone. Who had to come by? Lord Gort! He generously offered us a lift to Rabat and we were home in no time.

“Along with these trivial events, the war brought with it the serious worry of conscription. We, the students, were all of the age, or about to reach the age, of conscription. Thank goodness, arrangements were made. We joined the army in October 1941 and followed an intensive three-month course. Then we continued studying from January although we were again called up occasionally to continue our training. However we never actually fought in the war and in 1946 we graduated.

“After two years of studying literature, history, philosophy and political economy, a further five years devoted exclusively to law, and another year of practice, I finally received my advocate’s warrant. I was keen to make a success of my career. I dealt with all sorts of cases: criminal, civil and commercial. After seven years, I was asked to act as a magistrate for the summer. I accepted the post and the experience was fulfilling; however when at the end of the summer I was asked to remain a magistrate, I declined the request. I liked being a lawyer and cherished the independence it offered. I practised law until the mid-1990s, then I decided to dedicate my life to my hobbies.”

Since 1954, Dr Ganado has been the Maltese contributor to the Encyclopædia Britannica. His interest in history was already known, so when the Encyclopædia Britannica editors contacted the Tourist Bureau, it in turn contacted Dr Ganado. Dr Ganado says that this interest stemmed from his childhood as his father was one of the very few pre-war Melitensia collectors. Dr Ganado adds, “When I was young, Maltese history had just started being taught at the Lyceum. Before that, only European history was taught. My history teacher was Mr Rocco Farrugia. He would set us homework and I would excitedly do this homework with the aid of my father’s vast library. Whenever I had history homework, I would run off to my father who would recommend to me more books to read. Obviously, my homework always reached a high caliber, and I would be so proud when Mr Farrugia would call me out to the class to read my essays. At university I also wrote historical articles, this time for the Law Journal. I wrote biographies of Maltese judges. I then continued writing for various newspapers and journals.

“It was around this time that I first faced the throes of politics. The Nationalist Party asked me to stand for the executive committee elections, and I was elected. As a member of the executive committee I did not really have time to write any articles, but then I learnt that Dr Gorg Borg Olivier was going to insist on dominion status. I asked whether I could start a series of articles on the historical development of the Maltese constitution. These 23 articles were published in Patria and they served their purpose in London during the Round Table Conference, when we were asked to prepare memoranda. As we were in London we had no books to aid us. I was able to recall facts from memory. On Carmelo Caruana’s suggestion a Nationalist Youth Movement was set up. I was president of the movement until my eventual expulsion from the party. As is well-known, I was eventually expelled from the Nationalist Party as I disagreed with certain tactics the party was using.

“When the integration issue was at its height, the party held meetings and talks in government schools, open to the opposition. Every place I visited I was attacked. In Gozo, I consider myself very fortunate that I was not badly hurt and, when I managed to enter a car, the crowd tried to overturn it. After my expulsion, I joined my cousin Herbert Ganado’s political party – the Democratic Nationalist Party. I was secretary general until the 1960s when the party dissolved. I consider the party’s dissolution as a boon as I could start devoting more time to hobbies and I could increase my publication of academic articles and read papers both in Malta and abroad.”

Melitensia clearly remained a constant in Dr Ganado’s life. Throughout his career, whenever he travelled, Dr Ganado kept his eyes open for anything which had to do with Malta, whether they were books, manuscripts, maps, postcards or stamps. Dr Ganado features in many founder member lists for societies he was passionate about. So, he was a founder member and later president of the Malta Historical Society and a founder member of the Malta Philatelic Society. The Malta Philatelic Society was started through the intervention of Louis Frank, who was incidentally a distant relative of the famed Anne Frank. Dr Ganado used to be Louis Frank’s lawyer. When he learnt that there was no Philatelic Society in Malta he asked Dr Ganado to rope in two other philatelists, thus the four of them set up the Malta Philatelic Society. Dr Ganado was secretary general for 20 years and he still contributes articles to the Philatelic magazine. It is truly a wonder how Dr Ganado manages to fit in all his passions in 24 hours. He mentions how he is also a founder member of the Malta Bridge Association, and first president.

“I think it is very important to devote time to both work and leisure. I still play bridge regularly – on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. It is an important means of relaxation. I won various competitions, including the Malta Championship. Until recently I was also vice-president of the Maltese Association of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Malta.”

It was in 1953, during the aforementioned travels, that Dr Ganado was in London and he first picked up some maps of Malta. Dr Ganado says, “I picked up 26 maps of Malta. I had no knowledge of the subject but I was attracted to them because of my love for Melitensia. With those 26 maps in hand, I started a card index in which I could fill in the details of each map. I started studying all about maps, their production, their printing and publication. I have never looked back. During holidays, after some sightseeing, I would rush off to map shops and I would buy every example I could find, sometimes in duplicate and triplicate. When you buy such a number of maps, you learn a lot about the different states and variants of the same map. A vast number of Malta maps can be identical but in various states, with different information written on the cartouche at the top or elsewhere. This is how I was in a position to pass on to the government a collection of 450 loose different maps. In total I had several more different pre-1900 maps. I also had maps in books and when I donated the collection to the government, I kept those because without them I could not work.

“The Genga map of Valletta is probably my favourite. This map, of Mount Sceberras, precedes the building of Valletta. It shows a project, proposed by Grandmaster La Valette, to build a fortified city on Mount Sceberras. The architect Bartolomeo Genga drew four manuscript copies and the other three are lost. I call this 1558 map the jewel in the crown.

“There is one map which I still wish to own. It is an 18th Century English map of Malta which I have seen, but somehow it has never come my way.”

How can a man, alone, build such a collection? Dr Ganado thinks that the answer lies in his calm, very patient nature. He says, “Since I gave up my legal practice I have concentrated on Melitensia. I find that life is too short, and I have no free moment. I still form part of six committees, indeed I am chairman on the Cultural Heritage Advisory Committee and on the board of directors and editorial board of Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti. There are so many things I would like to do, yet I simply do not foresee their implementation. For this reason I am very happy to help researchers in whatever they are doing.” Dr Ganado’s colleagues and friends appreciate his erudition and generous disposition. For his 70th birthday, he was presented with a “Liber Amicorum” – a collection of essays all dedicated to him.

Dr Ganado thinks that his optimism also lies at the base of his happy life. He closes off, “To this day I remain an optimist – I never give up, whatever I may be doing. The spirit of research is an intrinsic part of my character and I am always yearning to discover the undiscovered. That is what makes life so interesting and worthwhile.”