In October 1952, I started attending St Emilie de Vialar School in Rabat, which was administered by the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition. Our uniform consisted of a navy blue blazer with the school badge, shorts, a white shirt, a small blue tie, black shoes and grey socks. A blue pinafore was obligatory to keep our daily clothes clean. I would complete my primary education there by July 1955.

The author with his sister Vivianne at St Dominic Square, Rabat, near St Emilie de Vialar boarding school, in October 1952.

The following is a list of the sisters at the primary school and their subject areas or duties. They were all Maltese except where otherwise stated: Sister-in-charge: Rev Mother Pace; English: Senior sister Marie de Lourdes and Sr Richard (from Manchester, UK); Religion: Sr Winifred Anastasi; arithmetic and discipline: Sr Emilie Mamo; geography: Sr John Mark (from Ireland); dormitories: Sr Albin (from Ireland) and Sr Mary Magdalene; Pantry/kitchen: Sr Wilfred (from England); Italian: Sr Antoinette Farrugia (now 102 years old, God bless her); French: (in my case only), Senior Sister Marie de Lourdes (then over 60 years of age); and discipline: Sr John Evangelist. The school doctor was a Dr Bugeja from Rabat.

The Maltese language was not yet taught. We wrote on narrow and wide-lined copybooks and always started our work by writing the religious initials: J-M-J-E, standing for Jesus, Mary, Joseph and Emilie, the saint’s name, on the left of the page, and the full date on the right.

The following year, Rev Mother Pace retired and an Italian sister, Sr Rev Mother Eufrasia took over the helm.

Sr Marie de Lourdes suggested that I should be taught French because my mother had received a French-based education until she married my dad when he was stationed in Ismailia in Egypt during the war.

Next to his father’s 1948 Vauxhall Wyvern car at Buskett in spring 1953.

Obviously, I did not agree and tried to miss lessons on Thursday and Saturday afternoons in order to play football with my friends. But Sr Marie de Lourdes put her foot down. I admired her covertly for her enthusiasm. Thanks to her and to my mother, I learned how to speak French fluently.

The parents were asked to buy sweets for their children. Mum regularly bought me a bag of sweets or toffees to be distributed by the sisters during the afternoon tea at 4pm. They lasted from Monday to Saturday at the rate of two sweets per day.

I recall that only two girls attended St Emilie de Vialar School, and, since they lived in the vicinity, they used to go home for lunch and return to attend school in the afternoon. However, the boys were boarders and we were only allowed to go home every Sunday morning carrying our laundry bag, after having heard mass in the school chapel celebrated by the Augustinian Fr Joe Cini.

I loved Sundays when I would go back to our home at Pietà Wharf to see my family. We were 10 in all – mum, dad, my sister, my paternal grandparents, my father’s brother, two great-uncles and a great-aunty. Normally dad used to take me to watch a morning or a matinée film on Sundays but whenever he was abroad on a Royal Navy ship, my uncle would take me instead.

With his mother and sister in front of the Vauxhall with its bonnet raised for the engine to cool down at Salina on a Sunday evening in spring 1953.

“The boys were boarders and we were only allowed to go home every Sunday morning

They would either be action movies like Quo Vadis, starring British actor Peter Ustinov, or Westerns like Distant Drums, with the American star Gary Cooper. In between, I would enjoy the company of the whole family and play with my toys.

With his mother Georgette and sister Vivianne at Buskett.

While returning to school by car and going up Saqqajja Hill, Rabat, with my father or uncle, I used to make lots of excuses or feign sickness in order to miss school and return home.

I recall that on Thursday mornings, all the boys would line up holding their blue bottle of Milk of Magnesia and a tablespoon as a weekly purgative.

At the time, the school had a very large terraced garden where the pupils played or ran about. The lower part was full of holm oak trees. Some are still there up to this very day. The trees produced a large number of acorns with which we would create makeshift toys, especially planes, or anything we fancied, or else we collected the fruit and pelted each other in an acorn fight.

Two flights of steps led to the upper garden where there was a chicken pen, surrounded by various types of vegetables being cultivated.

On Saturdays, we prepared to go home the next day. I remember polishing my shoes in a small upper room which held the laundry bags ready for home on Sunday.

With his mother, sister and paternal grandmother Mary née Borda, on the same day and at the same location prior to returning to the boarding school in the evening.

At times, we were entertained by watching a religious film in the hall, like The Passion of Christ and The Song of Bernadette. These films were in black and white.

In the corridor, we were instructed to walk in parallel lines on the sides. The years 1950 to 1953 were marked by the Korean War and being children, we joked about ‘Marching to Korea’. Of course, we did not realise the gravity of the situation in this black patch of world history. We deemed it to be just another exciting schoolboys’ adventure.

In spring, with the days growing longer, I remember Sr Winifred taking us out near a fountain in the lower garden after tea to while away the time playing games like passju and blind man’s buff. As the sun’s rays grew weaker, we would sit down on the flagstones while Sr Winifred would take out an English book and read us a short story or rhyming poems in Maltese having a witty ending.

In 1955, together with my Standard 4 (Year 6) colleagues Neville Ransley, Hugh Peralta and Maurice Cilia, we sat for the Form I exam of St Aloysius’ College, Birkirkara. I obtained 57 per cent in arithmetic and 78 per cent in English. The others passed too and so we proceeded to the college in October of that year.

I recall visiting my former school occasionally to see the sisters there, especially in 1965 when I received a very warm and hearty welcome with tea and biscuits. There was so much to talk about that I had no time to eat a chocolate biscuit which I was kindly offered, so it just melted in my hands. The sisters were overjoyed, especially when I told them that I had started my career by teaching French at Stella Maris College, Gżira, in March of that same year. This was because the founder of the sisters’ school, St Emilie de Vialar, was born in Gaillac, southern France, in 1845. Her feast is celebrated on June 17.

With his sister on a see-saw during a 1954 Christmas party for children of Royal Navy seamen on board the depot ship HMS Ranpura berthed at Manoel Island.

It is a pity that no school reunions were planned until July 2004 after my retirement, when an enterprising sister, Bernardette Gafà of St Joseph School, Blata l-Bajda, held one for all alumni of St Emilie de Vialar schools, at Rabat. Unfortunately, there were only two men present: one, half my age, and myself; the rest were all women. I hope more reunions are held for the benefit of all alumni of both genders of the sisters’ schools on the island.

I still remember the names of many other former pupils; among these the following come to mind: Jo Jo Ellul, Stephen Gatt, Tony Camilleri, Norman Ciancio, Joe Sciortino and John D’Amato. Sandro Magri and Oswald Wismayer were with me in three schools: St Anthony in Sliema (1949/51), St Joseph (1952/55) and St Aloysius (1955/1960).

Hugh Peralta studied law and became a prominent lawyer, while the other three of Standard 4 (Year 6) took up teaching as a career. Eventually, Neville Ransley studied education administration in England and became a head of school in London. Maurice Cilia attended St Michael’s College of Education and became a teacher. He emigrated to Australia in the 1960s, studied German and became a head of school there. I also attended St Michael’s College for my Certificate in Education, taught in primary schools, languages in the secondary sector, at the Institute of Tourism Studies and became a head of school in Malta.

Some of us former students, who later went to St Aloysius’ College, at times contact each other through Whats­App and reminisce on the good old days.

I would like to end by saying that the primary education we received from our family and the former St Emilie de Vialar School, Rabat ‒ now a home for retired Sisters and a venue for retreats ‒ gave us the essential grounding of our character formation, leading to a successful career for the future. May God bless and sustain with long life the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition for their useful and successful contribution to education in Malta and in many other countries beyond our shores.