November is the last full month of autumn, a precursor of the cold winter months and Christmas festivities. Somehow for me, it brings with it some very lucid recollections of childhood experiences many of which, I am sure, those of my age will remember. I would like to share some of them with you.
It is the month when we focus on and stress the importance of remembering our dearly departed family members and friends. At the time, following All Saints day, on the second day of the month, we dutifully attended three hastily celebrated Masses. We referred to this day as the "Day of the Dead". During my stint as an altar boy, a very long one indeed, I remember waking up each morning and, with a sense of duty, take part in a solemn mass held on each day of the month at 6.30am. In those days, the church ambience would be sombre, shorn of any embellishments and black would be the liturgical colour adopted throughout. In the middle of the church, just a few feet away from the altar and in the middle of the congregation, there was a cenotaph covered in black drapes and lace. It would be headed by a bronze cross and four candlesticks. The liturgy for the mass, sometimes a concelebrated one would be that for the repose of all souls. The celebration would end with the blessing of the cenotaph with holy water and incense. I do not know why, but at the time the cenotaph somehow made me feel uneasy!
It also brings back specific memories of my time as an altar boy when I regularly used to accompany the priest, occasionally throughout the year, to the hospital mortuary, a hall which at the time looked like something from the Middle Ages. We used to sit facing each other in a black carriage drawn in harness by two black horses with dark plumes on their heads. We would be preceded by another gold leaf adorned carriage with four angels, one at each corner, carrying the deceased and again drawn by two majestic horses. The cabmen of both carriages wore a black top hat, tie, suit and a white shirt. The priest would normally sit with his back to the cabman. I would sit opposite him, inside, silently, struggling to balance the weight of a white iron cross. Somehow I do not remember being that afraid at all during these functions.
You might ask; where is all this leading to? After 50 years, I still have vivid memories of the times we accompanied a dead baby or a destitute person in the plain, white wood, casket. Luckily, these situations do not exist anymore. Or are they still present away from our sight under a different guise? We read newspaper reports of families in a desperate situation fleeing the ravages of their country that end up drowned, lost forever near our shores in the Mediterranean Sea.
November brings with it more intense memories of departed members of my family. My mother died at a very young age and had been a very sick woman since she was 31. Medical treatment at those times was not as advanced as it is today and a truly sick person had to go through harrowing and testing experiences. Today, after having raised a family of four, I wonder how hard it must have been for her to take care of us, five in all; I am also eternally grateful to my father who must have suffered a lot of stress and toiled pretty hard to keep up with the demands of his teaching job and home. They were two persons made of steel like many other Maltese of their age, who had faced and survived the horrid experiences of war.
I also remember are my grandparents and the way they marked the Feast of St Martin, which incidentally is also celebrated in November. No, it's not about the Roman soldier from Tours who converted to Christianity in adulthood, it's about how much we as children anticipated the bag of nuts, fruits, sweets and sweet buns with a liquorice in the middle, which they used to give us annually. It was a full yet very crude bag, a humble one, made out of rags of which Nanna always had a good supply and recycled year in year out. It was their way at the time of showering all us grandchildren, with their boundless love. I have always wondered what's behind this tradition and I tend to think that it might have to do with the fact that in olden times, at around this time, people would be storing food in order to survive the winter
Nannu, who was a very good cook, would prepare a tart whose recipe he claimed was a closely guarded secret of his, which we always relished. I have never met anyone who makes this tart nowadays and, as for the recipe, he took it with him to his grave. If my taste buds have remained as sharp as then, besides sweet pastry it must have had an assortment of nuts, dried figs and chocolate as some of its ingredients. We did not have a car and it never entered our head to go to Bahrija for the annual feast. We did not know about it then. I do not recall it being the full blown feast and funfair that it is today.
I cannot remember the name or person, but it must have been one of our primary school teachers who would, with minimum fuss and great dedication, go round the classes and organise the distribution of poppies by us children. We would eagerly roam the streets in Floriana and Valletta, with a tray and tin, distributing these poppies in turn for a donation which many times did not exceed a half penny. Poppy day entailed a collection which we were told was in aid of maimed servicemen who had survived the ravages of war. At the time besides residents and visitors there would also be members of the British Forces and expatriates. At the end of the week, we returned with an empty tray and a heavy collection tin.
Remembrance Day was celebrated with a high profile parade near the War Memorial in Floriana. Members from British Armed Forces regiments serving in Malta, the Territorials, and serving and visiting Royal Navy personnel would all be represented, all lined up in front of the memorial. It is on these occasions that I developed a passion for military parades and military hymns. And exactly at the right time, on the 11th day, at the 11th hour the last post would be played to a crowd of bowed heads. We used to look up to, in admiration and in awe, to a group of civilians in military drill, proudly displaying on their chests their hard-earned war medals. None of us knew what the medals represented, though everyone would give his own interpretation of the colours of their ribbons. The last time I attended this ceremony, the number of those still alive had dwindled to the extent that they could be counted on the fingers of my hand. I am not sure, but I think it was invariably celebrated on the 11th of the month and it must have been a holiday then!
The last Sunday of November marks the end of the liturgical year and the start of a new one. It marks the start of a time of waiting for the feast of the Nativity on 25 December. We used to help the church sacristan with the embellishments related to church liturgy which is mainly purple. We enjoyed the time spent filling a large number of tins with sawdust/sand and soil and sowing grains. We placed them in the dark, under a large cupboard in the staircase leading to the belfry and watered them regularly; these would eventually grow white sprouts which would be used to decorate the altar at Christmas. Preparations would be in full swing at the premises of the MUSEUM for the procession with baby Jesus. We would spend hours there helping members make paper mâché cribs and clay pasturi (statuettes). The work would be allocated in accordance to the aptitudes and abilities of us volunteers. We would watch in awe the one, most artistically endowed, who had a very steady hand and capable of fine brushing the eyes, brows, mouths, and beards. If he is reading this, his initials are P.A.
I have given you some thoughts which have come to me and hope that my memory serves me right. I have other later experiences attached to or around the month of November, some of them very sad indeed. But it's best that these are forgotten and forgiven since they are still recent and it's too early to treat them as just memories. I now wait for what's in store this November!