In my heart I was certain of it but I did not want to admit it to myself. Long years of the San Gejtanu feast get you used to be underlying question – will the festa be ruined by fighting?

This time round the question did not regard the two bands, because post 1987 these have normalised their relationship and so have the supporters.

The question before the feast began regarded mainly the relations between the Maltese of Hamrun and the many non-Maltese who now live there. We hear many times of incidents relating to TCNs and the festa is known for the massive intake of alcohol.

Instead, I am happy to report no such incident happened, the non-Maltese were out in force and they looked happy with the celebrations, although naturally they did not understand the words or the context.

But, as we now know, while there was no incident between the bands or the clubs, nor between the different ethnicities, there was an ugly incident that involved the leader of the Nationalist Party who was refused entry into his own party club.

The PN seems particularly prone to such incidents. A deputy leader, Robert Arrigo, was reportedly blocked from entering the party club at Zabbar and former leader Adrian Delia was stopped from entering the party club at Mellieha.

In Hamrun the argument seems to be been that the party leader had not found time to visit in two years. Others speculated that the real reason was the non-appointment of Mario de Marco to the Shadow Cabinet.

Then a person who was accompanying the party leader was savagely beaten up and had to be hospitalised. The party leader meanwhile just crossed the street and was welcomed on to the balcony of the band club opposite.

We have not heard of any police investigation of this incident nor of any magisterial inquiry. The party has not, so far, issued any statement nor has any decision seem to have been taken with regards to the barman. The party has continued with its somnolent apathy.

We have not been told the party leader visited his injured defender, but the L-orizzont did. The injured man is related to the second big PN family of Hamrun, the Mifsud Bonnici one.

The one who came worst off this incident, apart from the injured supporter, was the party leader himself whose personal prestige was never so low.

Joe N Tabone

Our families on my mother’s side were quite friendly, from the times of It-Tigrija in Rabat Gozo in pre-war times and it could also be that one of the many teachers in our family taught him when he was small. Anyway, that’s what he used to tell me.

Later on Eddie Fenech Adami chose him to be the Bank of Valletta chairman and he led the privatisation of the bank.

Then, with less reason, he chose him to be the chairman of Air Malta.

Tabone’s term is remembered for his Avro-jet experiment which turned sour. With this experiment the airline departed from the Boeing template.

The Avros were smaller planes as one finds even today in regional airlines but the Maltese never accepted them especially when they started to be used instead of the bigger Boeings on three hour flights. One can still find them around.

Then, to make things worse, the airline set up Azzurra Air, which soon had to be wound up.

I was there on that long night when Tabone ordered Air Malta to be closed down. The strong General Workers Union, fruit of the Dom Mintoff monopolistic mindframe, was at that time on the warpath with Tony Zarb undermining Anglu Fenech for the union secretary general post.

When push came to shove Tabone ordered the airline to be shut down unless the union backed down. At the end Eddie ordered Tabone to withdraw the order.

So now the order has been reversed - Tabone is dead and the airline is still alive, although it may be shut down in the coming months. Irony of ironies.

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