Leakey jacket: Facts of a saga

The report (March 5) recording the visit to Malta of the director general of the EU's military staff, Lt Gen. David Leakey referred to the opportunity Lt Gen. Leakey had of seeing "his father's uniform, which he gave to the Royal Malta Artillery before he left and was formerly displayed at the War Museum".

The history of this jacket (it's not a full uniform, please) needs to be recorded because the association of which I am the proud president presently stands much aggrieved by the fact that, citing prescription, a government entity ended up denying the jacket's rightful owner from this possession.

Some five years prior to the disbandment of the former Territorial regiments in Malta, Major General Rea Leakey paid a formal visit to our regiment, the 3/11 Regiment Royal Malta Artillery (Territorials). He visited our functioning scenarios both at Fort St Elmo (then our home) and at the Għajn Tuffieħa barracks (now Ħal-Ferħ) where we were going through our annual summer training camp.

During part of his visit he came to our warrant officers' and sergeants' mess. He enjoyed speaking both formally and informally with the members of that mess and also sharing (several!) drinks with us. He was really enjoying himself; this was clearly visible to all of us. But when his time came to leave, in a surprising gesture, he just unbuttoned his jacket, turned to our mess president at the time (who, if my memory serves me right was BSM Victor Filletti) and said to us: "This is a small something to thank you all for a wonderful time I've had here."

That jacket was, therefore, thenceforth part and parcel of our mess's property along with many other gifts and memorabilia which, over time, that very active mess had accumulated.

Some years rolled by and the rumours that started to circulate were to the effect that Dom Mintoff's government would soon set about dismantling the Territorial regiments. The mess's committee did not sit down and fatalistically wait for the inevitable to happen. It took legal advice on how to go about ensuring that its members' possessions would not end up being taken away by some government official with a good probability then of never being enjoyed again by the warrant officers and sergeants of the regiment. The legal advice was to the effect that, while the regiment and mess were still alive, a parallel association could be formed which, through a power of attorney mechanism, would receive from the mess all its property.

The process was swiftly executed, the necessary mess extraordinary general meeting was duly held and the mess's property was, well ahead of the disbandment of the 3/11 Regiment RMA(T) in 1972, passed into the private hands of various members of the new association for safe keeping.

The only snag was that, when the various items of mess property were being moved away from the mess quarters, a slight oversight by one of the RMA PSI's seconded to our regiment, a certain Sgt Sayan, saw the Leakey jacket not following the same route. This was a genuine mistake not noticed at the time.

Sometime after the disbandment hubbub, the Leakey jacket suddenly reappeared at the officers' mess of the Armed Forces of Malta in Luqa. The AFM's brigadier at that time was Brig. A. Sammut Tagliaferro. Our association's committee did not at that time have a formal place where to reassemble all its property (then being held for safe-keeping by various members) and so we just kept mum about it.

A new turn in the Leakey jacket saga developed when Brig. Sammut Tagliaferro completed his term as AFM commander and became involved in some position on the committee of the War Museum Association. Suddenly, the Leakey jacket again appeared as an exhibit at the War Museum, ironically again at Fort St Elmo.

After many years of looking around for a permanent place where to reassemble our possessions, the Malta Branch of the Royal British Legion welcomed us into their home and allotted us precious space.

The exercise immediately commenced of bringing together again all the association's property from where it had been held for safe custody.

And the whole exercise, not without several problems, was eventually completed and a big party was held to celebrate the event at the British Legion premises in Valletta with the then UK High Commissioner Vincent Fean being the guest of honour to inaugurate the display case.

Having now found a home we immediately contacted Heritage Malta, which, in the meantime, had come into existence as the government's holder of all items in its museums, and asked for the return to us of the Leakey jacket. After lengthy correspondence, their final retort was that they could not entertain our request on the simple argument that they had acquired ownership rights over the jacket through prescription.

Now it seems that the jacket is back into the hands of the Armed Forces of Malta officers' mess. We feel it would be nice and fitting if the new brigadier there (maintaining his predecessor's always very close cooperation and friendship between the force and our association) would accept that our Leakey jacket be "brought back home" into the hands of its rightful owners.

The author is president of the 3/11 Regiment RMA(T) Association.