The beginning

It was during the first few years after the end of World War II.

I do not think I was older than six when I heard for the first time about the Salesian Oratory, in Victoria. The building had just opened on one side of St Augustine Square, or, as it was known to all of us, Pjazza Tomba, but the beams had already collapsed. I can still see those beams, hanging from one side, inside the building, through the still wide-open windows.

I also remember someone saying: “They are building on clay. This is not a good structure.”

Some years later, I started going to the oratory where, after playing games, I used to attend Catechism lessons and I really loved it.

The only concern for many mothers was that we used to return home from the oratory with our shoes and, sometimes, even our clothes soiled with clay, especially in winter.

Fr Paul Micallef (1897-1956), founder of the oratory. Photo: Friends of Don Bosco − Gozo

In those days – it was in the late 1940s and the early 1950s – the grounds where we used to play were rough and not cemented as they are today. They were full of holes and pits, gravel and stones, and… clay – a lot of it.

I also remember many of us going up and down a mound of clay, precisely where today the newly built chapel of the oratory stands. While playing there, sometimes we used to find human bones.

Later on, I learnt that the site on which Dun Pawl Micallef (Tal-Barkuna) dreamed of building the oratory was once a cemetery, where – according to tradition – foreign dignitaries who died of diphtheria on their way back to France from the crusade in Tunisia in 1270 were allegedly buried.

We also used to play on the left-hand side of the small chapel that was exactly on the other side of St Augustine church and convent, a chapel which, for some years, was used as the quarters for the Salesian Boy Scouts group of which I formed part for the best eight years of my life. I recall standing in a line waiting for my turn to go on the swings or battling to play ‘rounders’. Older boys used to play football.

The Salesian Fathers

In those days, there were three Salesian fathers – Fr Joseph Borg, who had the scout group much at heart and was our spiritual director (he later went to Australia and, on his return, went to the Salesians’ Oratory in Sliema); Fr Joseph Mangion, who was in charge of the organisation and meetings of the altar boys (he was later transferred to the oratory in Sliema and was in charge of the publication Ħajja Salesjana printed there) and was also the director of the same oratory; and Fr Alwiġ [Louis] Mizzi (who later on went abroad and was, for some time, Professore della Lingua Inglese at the Salesian College on the slopes of Mount Etna volcano, in Catania, Sicily.

Group photo with Bishop Joseph Pace in 1953. Photo: Francis Cremona

Later on, other Salesian fathers came along – Fr C. Mifsud, Fr Anton Camilleri, Fr Vincent Debono and Fr Joseph Fenech.

At the age of 11, I joined the scout group and also became an altar boy. I owe a lot of my early education to Fr Borg and Fr Mangion, under whose ‘care’ I was. But the manners, leadership, discipline and teaching of Dun Alwiġ impressed me most. Perhaps because I was so fascinated listening to him relating stories about Our Lady Help of Christians, about Don Bosco but, mostly, about Dominic Savio. Even though he was the director of the oratory, he was very gentle and knew how to talk to us children.

Dun Alwiġ

Fr Alwiġ Mizzi, SDB. Photo: Ġużeppi Cremona

Dun Alwiġ was from Għarb. While Fr Borg and Fr Mangion used to speak standard Maltese, Fr Mizzi used the dialectal variant of the village. He was of a slender physique and tall and his black cassock (sometimes shining and looking greenish with use and age), which all priests in those days used to wear, used to give him an impressive stature, especially for us children. But, above all, he was very disciplined.

To encourage us to attend Catechism lessons every day, we used to have a sort of membership card rubber-stamped with the word ‘present’ after every lesson. With all the stamps ‘collected’ during the week, we would then be allowed to sit on the very front benches, beneath a large white silver screen, at the Sunday afternoon film screenings, which started at about 5.30pm; the other seats would be occupied by members of the public who would come from all over the island.

At about 7.30pm, the same film would be screened again for the paying public.

The theatre

When the actors’ group started to rehearse Dun Alwiġ’s script of Il-Passjoni (the Passion), I was chosen to play the part of one of those who, during Jesus’s trial, shouted “Sallbu. Sallbu’!”(‘Crucify Him. Crucify Him.’). It was 1953, when I was 11.

The play was very well re­ceived by all those who paid for a seat at one of the three or four performances.

Unfortunately, after the end of the Passion plays, some members of the audience still expected to see a ‘farce’ or ‘comic act’ that took place at the end of the usual plays. Toni Tal-Morella – an excellent comedian – was not al­lowed to take part in the Passion play because even his ap­pearance on the stage would make people laugh.

Crucifixion Scene from Il-Passjoni, 1961. Photo: Francis Cremona

Dun Alwiġ’s Passion play was put up again during Lent of 1961. This time, I was 19 and was given three different roles: that of the apostle St Andreas in the first act representing ‘The Last Supper’, again as part of the mob shouting for Jesus’s cruci­fixion and as a Jewish soldier in the act where Christ was cruci­fied on Mount Calvary.

Vincent Grech played the role of Jesus and, in my opinion, he was impeccable. He wore a nude-coloured vest with blood stains to look like Jesus stripped of his clothes before being nailed to the cross.

Extraordinary also was Toni Mizzi’s role as Judas Iscariot. Among other remark­able actors were Ġanninu Cremona in the role of Pontius Pilate, his brother, Ġużeppi in the role of Caiaphas and Peter Borg as the apostle Peter.

As in other Salesian oratories, no female actors were allowed to take part. However, Emma Mizzi posed for a photo as Jesus’s sorrowful mother, to be reproduced on the front page of the brochure for the play.

Cinema and the film Star of India

The poster of Star of India

The Salesian fathers bought a large screen on which to start projecting films. Among the many films that were shown were The Vagabond King and The Ten Commandments, which kept being shown for several weeks.

And we started to have film shows twice on Sunday afternoons.

Once, during the first screening of Star of India, there was a power cut. The lights were off for too long and there would not have been time enough to finish the second part of the film before the second screening – which was sold out − started. The audience was there, waiting for the lights to return and the screening to resume and would not budge. There was grumbling and whistling, and shouting and booing.

At one point, Dun Alwiġ showed up and, in not such a gentle manner, he told the audience to leave their seat. In a short time, everyone was out of the theatre. The people grumbled… and had all the right to do so; but the hall had to be emptied for the second show.

Together with another five senior scouts I was appointed an official ‘usher’, and was supplied with a torch to help customers find their place in the large hall.

The ushers for the gala premiere of The Ten Commandments in 1961. From left: Toni Saliba, Joe Galea, Ignatius Saliba, Ġużi Grech, Joe Zammit Ciantar and Tony Cilia. Photo: Francis Cremona

The ‘Salesian Youths’

This was the name of a team of football players made up of  young, healthy youths who attended the oratory and  participated in the official Gozo Football Association league. For several years, in the 1950s, they were the best team in Gozo and I used to love walking to the Silver Jubilee Football Ground on Sunday afternoons to watch them play. They would bewitch the spectators with their Salesian sportive spirit and often ended up victorious over Nadur Rangers, Victoria Hotspur and Xewkija Tigers.

But, after various losses and pique, and certain unhappy events, the team broke up and I lost all the interest I had in watching football.

The winning Salesian Youths team. Photo: Friends of Don Bosco − Gozo

However, as I have already said, I will remember Dun Alwiġ [I still treasure a holy picture of St Dominic Savio that he had given to me signed by himself] for the stories he frequently narrated to us.

He would never tell us a story without mentioning an example from the life of Don Bosco or Dominic Savio. And who knows how many times I had compared my life with that of the young boy Savio. Who knows how many times, in that wonderful time, I asked myself if I had the power to live a good life like that of Savio. Who would have told me, then, that, many years later, I was going to translate into Maltese a book on the life of this saint whom I had loved and treasured so much.

A translation

I left the Salesians at the beginning of the 1960s. Some years later, the Salesians left Gozo. This was a great loss for the young children and teenagers of Victoria.

At the beginning of the 1990s, heavenly providence wanted that I again come in contact with Don Bosco’s children; this time with those at the Sliema oratory.

Once, when I was with Fr Tony Caruana and Fr Charles Cini – two Gozitan Salesians as well – we could not help but talk about the upbringing and education of children.

Procession with the statue of St Dominic Savio on the occasion of his canonisation in 1955. Photo: Francis Cremona

All of a sudden it was suggested to me: “You are the person who will translate into Maltese the life of Dominic Savio.”

“I will,” was my answer without any hesitation.

Beato Domenico Savio, as narrated by Don Bosco himself, was reprinted in 1950. I also got hold of a translation in English: Dominic Savio – Teenage Apostle – Saint, written by Don Terence O’Brien, SDB and printed in London in 1969.

My translation was eventually published: Duminku Savio – Il-ħajja tiegħu kif irrakkuntaha Don Bosco.

Cover of the book Duminku Savio by Joe Zammit Ciantar.

Today

Upon the departure of the Salesians from Gozo in December 1965, the Don Bosco Oratory was taken over by the Gozo diocese and run by diocesan priests who continued to educate youths and children in the charisma of Don Bosco.

Today, the oratory is under the direction of Fr Effie Masini and offers healthy education to children and youths in the three pillars of education promoted by Don Bosco, namely the chapel, the theatre and the football ground. Like the Salesians of Don Bosco, the aim is to raise honest citizens and good Christians.

Fr Effie Masini, the present director of the oratory, celebrating mass. Photo: Friends of Don Bosco – Gozo

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the precious help of archivist John Cremona in the compilation of this article.