A hive of economic activity

Joseph, 74, started out in Strait Street when he was 15. His father ran several bars, including the Egyptian Queen in Old Theatre Street, corner with Strait Street, the New Life, a music hall and the Colonial, a restaurant.

"At that time large British regiments used to visit Malta regularly, including the Dorsets, the Devins, the Northamptonshire and the Highlander Fusiliers, which meant that thousands of servicemen used to make a beeline to Strait Street at any one time."

Malta was the base of the British Royal Navy and ships would make port here to take on fresh supplies, offer the crew a rest or else dock for repairs.

"Life in Strait Street was honest, no matter what people say. The women working in the bars did not carry out anything illegal. The closing time was 11 p.m. before the 1960s and in later years it was 1 a.m."

Like his father before him, Joseph used to run the Egyptian Queen, Larry's Bar and New Life. Musicians used to be paid £2 a week at a time when government workers used to get 12 shillings or perhaps £1 a week in the 1930s. With the passage of time, the fee went up eventually to £10 a week.

"Strait Street used to make Valletta vibrate with the cinemas and the cafés making a bomb and generating business which spilled onto the rest of the capital, including shops selling gold and the market.

"There were no factories then so women often sought work in Strait Street either as barmaids or else as cleaners. Such women got a bad name because of the work they did but such things go on liberally today in Paceville.

"A lot of barmaids hailed from Senglea and they either slept overnight in a room in Strada San Giuseppe or else caught a taxi home.

"The Army Red Caps used to patrol the street but were not allowed to enter the bars while on duty unless they were called in by the owners to restore order."

Apart from the bars and music halls there were lodging houses for servicemen who preferred to spend the night ashore. Lodging cost one shilling a night which included a cup of tea and a shoeshine.

The bars were not decorated lavishly as they are today and the things that were broken when fights broke out were either the toilets or the mirrors. Most of the chairs and tables were made of mahogany and would last a lifetime.

Foreign female artistes hailed mostly from Hungary but the bar owners were bound by the police to be responsible for their upkeep. A number of them contracted a marriage of convenience to be able to reside here. The Maltese then held a British passport because Malta was a British colony.

Maltese men who used to visit Strait Street for a night-out used to look out for such foreign artistes.

"There was poverty in Malta at the time but countries that did not form part of the British Empire were poorer still," Joseph said.

"There is no way that Valletta will be revived at night whatever anyone says. It was that large mass of people that used to swarm to Strait Street that injected life and energy into the city.

"The buying power of the pound then was worth the equivalent of Lm30 in today's currency. With one pound in those days, a person could live comfortably for three days. In the 1930s and early 1940s a barmaid earned about £2 a day.

"Businesses closed down only on Good Friday. The rents of the bars were between 10 shillings and £1 (20 shillings) a day. There were bars which could accommodate 200 persons at a time," Joseph recalled.

He used to employ about 20 staff in each bar, 15 of whom used to be barmaids and the rest waiters.

"During the war, there was not much alcohol available to sell because the foreign beer was sold out and Farsons beer was rationed because of the lack of ingredients as convoys on their way to Malta were meeting the violent wrath of the enemy. Because of this extreme shortage, the bars used to serve wine instead.

"Practically, all the servicemen used to come to Strait Street - the war meant that their lives could be cut short as soon as their ship left Grand Harbour.

"Certain servicemen used to barter cigarettes for beer because of the scarcity of alcoholic drinks but among the local population there was a shortage of cigarettes like there was a shortage of everything else.

"We used to barter two bottles of beer for four packets of 10 cigarettes or two packet of 20s," Joseph said smiling.