Authoress Rita Stranger Hillier is not known to be Maltese. Strictly speaking, she was Anglo-Maltese. Her father was Gustav Vassallo, son of Enrico Vassallo and Camilla Mifsud. His sister Maria, my mother, wife of Judge Roberto Federico Ganado, was six years older than Gustav, who was born in Malta on February 26, 1889.
On September 29, 1917, he married in London an English lady, Winifred Stranger-Ford. They had two daughters: Patricia, born on October 18, 1919, and Rita, born in London on June 14, 1921.
Rita married George Norman Hillier on June 27, 1951. They had no children, and Rita became a widow on August 24, 1963. During World War II she served with an ambulance unit in North Africa and Italy. Later, together with her husband, she made her home in the Western Desert of Egypt, thence to Ethiopia for a time before returning to England to the West Country Farm owned by the couple.
In the 1950s, she took up residence on Norfolk Island, a tiny Australian island in the South Pacific Ocean, but in the 1980s she moved to Tauranga, in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand.
It was reprinted five times and was favourably reviewed for its superbly reproduced colour photographs
In 1969, Hillier published the very first coloured photographic record of Norfolk Island. It was reprinted five times by Anson Publications and was favourably reviewed by the Australian Book Review for its superbly reproduced colour photographs captured with her camera.
Rita took a keen interest in wildlife, listing among her varied pursuits, farming, writing and philately. I recall that when we both were in our teens, we used to exchange stamps by correspondence.
In November 2007, she affectionately sent me from New Zealand a copy of the fourth edition of her book The Norfolk Island Book, which contains her portrait in the dust jacket. Among her acknowledgements she thanked her father “for his generous and unfailing understanding”.
It is interesting to note that her father had an adventurous life. He was at one time in Sudan supplying workers to Saudi Arabia for the budding oil industry.
He worked for the MI5 and as a secret agent he was responsible for the escape from Ethiopia of the Emperor Haile Selassie. Around this time, he was ambushed in his car and his wife was very badly injured. It was then that Gustav and Freda came to live in Malta.
As from October 3, 1939, by deed poll in Egypt, he assumed the name Henry Stranger-Ford Vassallo, and he wrote that he had spent his whole life looking over his shoulder. He was, however, extremely proud to show to his relatives in Malta the dagger encrusted with precious stones gifted to him by Haile Selassie in recognition of his services.
Rita Hillier died in New Zealand on July 11 or 12, 2016, aged 95.