Before starting to read Peter Apap Bologna's Memories 1941-1973 I browsed through the book and looked at the photographs. They are reminiscent of another time. He dredges up many memories of Malta, country of his birth and home in his youthful years. This volume is about the first thirty-two years of his life and times. The navy, army and Royal Air Force were ubiquitous in our childhood and teen years, part of our everyday lives: ships in the different harbours, truckfuls of soldiers, sailors walking around in the streets.
At the beginning of the book there are several pages of photographs of the KOMR. The navy, army and Royal Air Force were ubiquitous in our childhood and teen years, part of our everyday lives: ships in the Grand Harbour and Sliema Creek, truckfuls of soldiers, sailors walking around. Peter's father joined the Territorial Army when he was 17 and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel by the time Peter was born.
Many of my generation will find that so many of those in the photographs throughout the book are familiar. In my case they reminded me of people I may have momentarily forgotten about. Peter's aunt Sophie Tonna Barthet for instance and their four daughters who lived just down the road from us. Indeed Thérèse Tonna Barthet and myself were in the same class at school. His very pretty and delightful aunt Connie Fiteni was one of two chaperones and guides who had organized a trip for a few of us to Sicily, Rome and Rimini at the end of our school days and gave us a taste of abroad. It was a huge adventure at the time and we loved every minute of it. We were at school with her daughters too and I was saddened to hear that the eldest, Magda, has passed away fairly recently. One day in London she taught me how to make a decent béchamel instructing me to first of all 'take the phone off the hook!' Angela Gatt Rutter, another of Peter's cousins, is a regular visitor to Malta. She too was at school. And so it goes on.
How did he manage to collect so many photos and other illustrations such as cuttings from newspapers etc.? Well, he tells us in the Foreword that "Over the years, from childhood, I have kept a mass of letters and photos, newspaper cuttings, and diary notes (though I never kept a proper diary, I did write occasional pieces). This enables me to recall and record much that happened over a lifetime." Peter certainly applied himself with diligence to building sizeable archives to which he could dip in when the need arose. He also mentions, in his Acknowledgments that Nicholas de Piro "allowed him free access to his archives".
These photographs are certainly not a gathering of ghosts. Although many of the older generation have passed away however, many of those whose photo is in the book and of whom Peter writes, more often than not, with affection, are still with us. Plenty of photos of the Flannerys - three girls and two boys - with whom the Apap Bolognas have been close friends since about 1950, when they went to live at Lija. Their father was a naval surgeon, their mother American. All three girls came to school and the eldest Esme was in the same class as myself. The girls all now live in Malta. Peter recalls: "We children saw each other all the time, and when Liz and Alfie gave their frequent drinks parties, we served the drinks. That was not difficult as it was either gin or whisky. They and their friends put away a phenomenal amount. In those days after the war the partying went on for a long time, making up for all the hardship of the war years." The friendship with the Flannerys has survived all these years and two of them came to the launch of Memories, in March. Esme was abroad.
There are photos of bon ton family weddings including those of Peter and his first wife Annie, his brother Michael and their late sister Anna, weddings which anyone who mattered seems to have attended. School photos at St Aloysius, summer holidays with cousins at St Paul's Bay. Then, once school was over and there was more socializing photos of 'Our Crowd'. Once settled to domestic life photos of Peter and Annie and their daughters. There is an impression of déjà vu which this book makes upon the mind of anyone who lived in those years. The wedding photos for a start hail back to an era when women were expected to dress modestly, especially on their wedding day. No off-the-shoulders or strapless dresses, no transparent bodices and proper veils had to be worn for church. For daywear skirts were below the knee, whatever your age and of course hats for certain occasions were di rigeur. The photographs are a reflection of these unwritten rules to which some of us still adhere.
In this first volume which covers the years 1941 to 1973 Peter bears witness to a world which has almost vanished. So much has been swept away, so much to lament. The mood is different now. It is as if there has been a loss of innocence. You feel it as you go from one chapter to the next. For example the instance when Peter's father Mario, asks Amy's father Joe: "Sir will you allow me to take Amy to the pictures? I will bring her back at 7pm." How often does this happen nowadays?
My admiration, when I came to the end of the book, was above all for Amy, Peter's mother. Her husband died of Hodgkin's disease, on the eve of his 45th birthday. She worked full-time at Malta Wholesale where she was "effectively manager, accountant and general factotum. She was indispensable, and eventually acquired a controlling interest in the business." This at a time when most women of her station in life did not work. The Malta Wholesale Drug Company was eventually passed on to her son Michael in the 1970s "when he took over and built it up into the big business it is today." All the while she was bringing up two sons and a daughter and making sure, in the author's words, that they remained at the top of the social pile. This is a privileged and well-connected family and Mrs Apap Bologna made certain it remained so. She is known to have been an admirable hostess and 'undoubtedly the leading hostess of the time. ' The great and the good were entertained in her home, first at 47, Bakery Street and then at Villa Apap Bologna (subsequently the residence of Desmond Morris and now the Ambassador of the US). From admirals to UN officials, governors to prime ministers her "motivation was to ensure that her children should be well-placed in Society.' Not only did she manage that but her two sons were eminently successful in their chosen profession and married well.
I also have admiration for the fact that Peter managed to do so much in one lifetime and, as he says, in the blurb, "... I seem to have managed to do all the things I wished to do..." That in itself is a great achievement.
Upon reading this book one comes to realize that the Malta of today is an increasingly international one linked by trade and investment, modern communications and the movement of peoples. The very pace of change makes many of us uneasy. Life was simpler then. We all feel it. In many ways there is a wish that it was still so, but with modern comforts and communications. And also, the sooner we get back to being a nation which imbibes its sense of right and wrong, and of manners and morals, with its mother's milk, the better all round. But will this ever happen? There's no going back.
Peter Apap Bologna is articulate in recording his life and times. The text is sympathetic and readable. I look forward to the next two volumes although Memories stands by itself. Mind you Virginia Woolf wrote six volumes of letters and five of diaries. Her husband Leonard, whose life was uneventful, managed a five-volume autobiography. So Peter is doing pretty well with three. I enjoyed the book's kaleidoscope of characters or subjects and its blend of the erudite and the ephemeral is hugely enjoyable. It doesn't look as if he is going to run out of things to write about in the second and third volumes.