Fireworks have been recorded as an indispensable part of Maltese festivities at least since the time of the Knights.

What evidence survives indicates that on particularly joyous celebrations, skilled artificers were imported from Italy. 

Fireworks factory and volunteers, c 1930s

More particularly from Sicily – some Maltese terms are giveaways of their Sicilian, rather than Italian, origins, like maskli from Sicilian masculi, giggifogu, Sicilian jocu di focu, trikkitrakki, Sicilian tricchi tracchi, porvli, fjakkli, murtali, musketterija, razzi, suffarelli, girandla, serpentelli, stoppìn, kruċetti.

St Paul’s fireworks factory, Rabat, in 1952

Not to mention the tour de force of all fireworks displays – the kaxxa nfernali, which shares nothing with Satan and the underworld but just reflects an illiterate misreading of cassa finale.

Any joyful occasion provided a good excuse – mostly religious festas and important civilian celebrations, like visits by royalty, military victories, political milestones.

In Malta, new money is now sneaking fireworks into baptisms, weddings and graduations.

Still one step behind Palermo, where well-wishers celebrate the release of long-time murderers from prison by letting off murtali, little realising how aptly the word describes their victims.

The German photographer Geo Fürst recorded a number of images of the fireworks let off on the occasion of the 1935 jubilee of King George V.

Another photograph by Fϋrst of the 1935 jubilee fireworks.

These images by Fϋrst of the 1935 jubilee fireworks were incorporated in commemorative postcards.

Postcard publishers and photographers have long realised the spectacular potential of fireworks, even before colour made that more obvious still.

The German Geo Fürst, monarch of image-making in Malta in the interwar years, had a heyday during the 1935 George V jubilee celebrations, for which the authorities voted £600 to be spent on fireworks. Richard Ellis would not be outdone.

He too had earlier recorded some amazing images.

Fireworks in Malta, a photograph by Richard Ellis, probably 1910s

Fireworks continue to divide the people – some hate the shattering noise, the pollution, the inconveniences, the dangers ever lurking in the kmamar tan-nar and the unexploded petards which maim the unwary.

Others find that a fair price to pay to keep alive an old and frankly astonishing tradition.

The military authorities banned fireworks during World War II.

Fireworks with the cypher of the Prince of Wales on the occasion of his inauguration of Malta’s first self-government on November 1,1921.

Two fireworks enthusiasts, 1920s postcard

Fireworks by British warships in Grand Harbour, c 1910