Patricia Salomone

My pizza & toffee apples in the 1950s

Self-published

2014

69pp

 

Superficially, this book (or booklet) tells the story of a child born as part of the post-war baby boom.

In this case, however, the child in question had a Maltese father and an Italian mother and the book tells us of growing up in the 1950s Tigne and spending summers in a huge, sprawling, house in Taranto.

The author's parents had met when her father, son of a minister in Lord Strickland's Cabinet, and an Army Officer, was billeted in Taranto at the end of WW2.

Beyond that, there are other wider horizons: as some Italians sussed when faced by this British Army officer, his surname denoted a possible Jewish relations. True to form, her best childhood buddy was of Jewish stock and her sister was later to marry an Israeli and settle in Israel.

Again, the author's childhood was richer than mine, for on the outer boundaries of her family she had and met French and Greek emigrees, each with a particular cultural and culinary background.

Although the author and I were both born in the same year, our childhood experiences are completely different, even though I spent some of my summer holidays in Gozo.

There is a special kind of charm in these childhood memories. I would say that the experiences in Italy outweigh those obtained in Malta. After all, children come to life in summer, but autumn and winter are dead seasons, where it is only school, school and school.

There was in Taranto not just an old and sprawling mansion but also a very wide and sprawling maternal family. Taranto was also the place where Mamma came to life: she lived for those summers, one might say.

This does not mean that the autumns and winters in Malta were without anything happening. On the contrary, there were daredevil roller skate rides down the steep streets of Tigne (impossible to imagine today) and of course there were far more children in those days. Tigne children also came to life in summer, with the entire shore of Qui-si-Sana at their disposal. And British army barbed wire and restricted zones meant nothing for the Tigne children.

For all this special caring childhood, there were also some terrible episodes, such as the suicide of a person who used to teach dance.

The author's mother seems to have lived a rather sad life in Malta, coming to life when in summer she went up to Taranto. Otherwise she sewed and she played Chopin nocturnes on the piano

Then when in mid-1950s, Italian television came to Malta things changed, as did the number of Maltese who became fans of the Italian national team on the strength of NicoloCarosio's voice during the Italian national team's games.

Of course, bad things from the past were hidden from the children. The next door neighbours, the Libertos, seem to have long and long-lasting relations with Italy, until in post-war years they emigrated to Australia. One wonders how they stayed in Malta during the war.

Although self-published, I could not find any evident mistake in the book - except in the common mistake of dubbing High Street Hamrun as San Gaetano Street (which is two streets up).