David Elyan

 When I was a boy, growing up in Cork, Ireland, in the early 1950s, my mother announced that my father was unable to go to the Opera House one evening and she proposed taking me instead. My heart sank. The thought of listening to all that shouting and screaming filled me with fear. I'd much rather stay at home reading the Beano or my then current book. Anyway, mother prevailed with a  mild bribe: I could bring my autograph book and at the end of the opera we would go back-stage and get the singers' autographs. She was herself a good violinist who played in the local Cork Symphony Orchestra and knew her way through the stage door at the Opera House. That settled it. The opera was Il Trovatore, sung by an ad hoc collection of professional singers, who were performing in various venues in Britain and Ireland. Until then my autograph book was filled with signatures of footballers and cricketers; people like Stanley Matthews, Tom Finney or Billy Wright, so some new names would not go amiss.

 I was surprised that I enjoyed it so much. At the end I met the soloists. The men were very matter of fact and simply put their names, or "sincerely" followed by their signatures, in my book. The ladies seemed much more interested and asked me my name, so they then put "to David", or drew a flower and one lady wrote a bar of music which I didn't understand  - it said "stride la vampa"!

Now we fast- forward by 50 years and it is 16 March 2002, the eve of St Patrick's Day, obviously a good omen. I am going to attend a performance of La Traviata at the Manoel, and to hear for the first time the young Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja, who had received such good reviews a year or so before at the Wexford Festival.  He sang Alfredo in La Traviata, my father's favourite opera, and I was certainly not disappointed.

During the interval I was introduced to Joseph's vocal coach, a certain Paul Asciak! When I asked if he  was the person whom I had heard singing Manrico in Trovatore in Cork all those years before, he was amazed. When I told him I got his autograph, and those of the other soloists he was astounded - even though I was unable to pronounce his name for all those years! He said he later sang at the Opera House in the late 50s - the last performance before it burnt down.

He said he would love to see my autograph book if I ever returned to Malta. When Tony Cassar Darien told him I had a house in St Julian's it was agreed that on my next visit from the UK , we would meet up  and I promised to be accompanied by the autograph book

Some months' later the meeting took place in Tony's office at the Manoel. Paul was delighted. He left with a set of photocopies as a reminder of the people he had toured with, at a time when he himself was a young singer making his name in the world of opera and only a little older than Joseph was then.

Paul and I bumped into each other in Valletta every few months at art or musical events over the subsequent years. Usually he spotted me before I saw him - which says much for his eyesight - and I marvelled that he walked so erectly and without a stick until comparatively recently.

I have the happiest memories of a marvellous man.