Never in my wildest dreams did I, susceptible anglophile throughout my career, ever think I’d be able to one day use this title, borrowed from that historic piece written by the great British journalist James Cameron 79 years ago on the occasion of the award of the George Cross to the Maltese people at the height of World War II. The opportunity arose last week with the announcement of the granting of the same award to the UK National Health Service, recognising its staff – past and present – who have done their work “with courage, compassion and dedication” for no less than 73 years.

Let there be no misinterpretation. Both awards were highly deserved and the awards themselves a noble gesture. While the Maltese, our fathers and mothers for the baby boomer generation, were bombed out of their skin during the war against the very European tandem of Germany and Italy, the NHS workers in the UK have been blitzed to an agonizing degree in the current pandemic, at one time even literally saving the life of their present Prime Minister, who cannot be said to be very NHS-friendly. Etonians are not brought up that way.

Also as in the case of a Malta needing food, shelter and sustenance while the bombs fell ceaselessly, so have the NHS staff, made up of thousands of foreign (including Maltese) professionals, been through endless shifts of dedicated work to save lives from the mysterious virus and its subsequent mutations, to inoculate the hordes and to still run an efficient service that is already stretched to the limit. A grateful nation recognises the hard work, the incredible resistance to mental and physical fatigue and the determination to persist against all odds, even at this moment in time.

For almost two straight years, they have been applauded and lauded by poets, paupers and politicians, the culmination of such recognition reached with the symbolic award of a medal often also given to deserving individuals. Malta was the only nation, then still a colony, to receive it (interpret that as you may) and now the NHS is only the second national entity in the UK, after the Royal Ulster Constabulary in 1999, to get it. All so commendatory and largely appreciated!

It is when this recognition is sustained through deeds, however, that adds to its significance. After the George Cross and her second great siege, Malta, assumingly a proud partner to the victors, did not even qualify for Marshall Aid, the American-financed European Recovery programme, which even the enemy, Germany in particular, received. The new Malta that emerged from the war was totally due to the fortitude and political resilience of the Maltese themselves. Seventy-six years on, there are still scars in the hearts of many Maltese families as well as on the physical face of Malta.

The same fate faces the NHS today in the UK. Like most health systems in Europe, they have been through, and are still going through, daily trials and tribulations, including pre-pandemic situations such as staff reductions, deteriorating conditions and flatly-denied better wages demands.

Alive today, James Cameron would have had no qualms about replicating his Malta story to drive home the point that medals and honours do not a stomach fill. In a fit of hapless self-inflation, I am doing it for you from here, James, the rock you supported from afar at a time of utter need.

…But there’s another medal to vie for

For the English and anglophiles everywhere, there is another medal distribution to vie for this very evening! England take on a refreshing Italy squad at Wembley, hoping to emulate what Bobby Moore and his two West Ham team-mates, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters, achieved in 1966 when England won the World Cup. Incredibly for those who, like me as teenagers, remember it so vividly, that is 55 years ago, and this is the first major final featuring England since then.

Needless to say, like all minion nations and ex-colonies in particular, the Euro 2020 final is a golden opportunity for an island full of football fanatics to make of it a memorable occasion of celebration, a profusion of social banter and good humour. You will notice I have slyly skipped mentioning the gambling side of it. Of course there will be those who moan it’s like we’re losing our “independent” virginity, ignoring the fact that it’s all about top-class football and top-rated footballers, a breather from local mediocrity and certainly nothing to do with our identity as a nation.

The irony about the medals that the winning team will be receiving this evening is that the players do not have to be told they cannot eat them. They earn more than enough, more, in fact, on a daily basis, than what the entire wartime population of these islands could muster in a whole decade.

One-way destiny

People everywhere are becoming more and more aware of the plight of newspapers as we have known them for light years. Those, which chose to conform to the electronic realities of the new century continue to extract an existence, but even the idea of free news outlets is now being subjected to an economic clampdown, alas.

USA Today is becoming the final major national daily in the US to accede to what is being described as “the inevitable” and start charging all its readers with digital subscriptions to access all of its content. By making readers pay for its website, USA Today is joining other top news outlets in shifting to a digital subscription model that signals the definitive end of an era when newspapers relied mainly on advertisements in their print editions for revenue.

I know there are some sceptics out there, but I dare say the Maltese newspaper scene is facing no better destiny.