Woman recalls migrating from Egypt, 61 years ago

Today is a special day for Georgette Conti Borda: It marks the 61st anniversary since she arrived in Malta on a convoy from Alexandria, Egypt.

As soon as it was announced that the Allies had launched an invasion to liberate France, signalling that the war was nearing its end, some Maltese families left Egypt to return to their homeland. The Conti Borda family was among them.

Mrs Conti Borda left Egypt with her Maltese husband John and nine-month-old son Alfred. Her sister Helen Abela left her hometown on the same convoy with her own Maltese husband, Charles, and six-month-old son John.

"The ship, L'Heridan, was full of Maltese families returning home," Mrs Conti Borda, 78, told The Times.

But while for these families it was a question of a return to their homeland, she and her sister were going to a new country.

"I was a bit worried. I had heard that Malta had been very badly bombed and I was leaving my family behind. Thankfully my sister was with me," she said.

The two sisters were not able to speak Maltese well but, since they were of French-Lebanese origin, they could converse with the sailors on board the French ship they were travelling on.

Mrs Conti Borda met her husband in Ismailia, where she was still at school, intending to study pharmacy. Her husband - a Royal Navy Petty Officer - was stationed at the Admiralty House in the Egyptian city. Before his death in 1998, Mr Conti Borda passed on several documents about the voyage and his other travels with the Navy to his son.

"Two years after they were married, in 1944, it was announced that the Allies had launched an invasion to liberate France. On June 6, they left Ismailia for Alexandria, where they spent the night after a four-hour train journey. The next day a convoy left Alexandria for Malta," Mr Conti Borda explains.

According to his father, the convoy was made up of destroyers, a battleship, two other ships and two troop ships. He said that although the journey would usually have taken three days, this one took a week, and they arrived in Malta on June 14.

"My mother describes it as a harrowing experience, with the defending destroyers weaving to and fro to protect the convoy," he said.

Mr Conti Borda said his father had several adventures during his time with the navy. When the HMS Devonshire took Norwegian King Haakon, his staff, diplomatic corps and the national gold reserves to safety in Britain, Mr Conti Borda was his personal steward and was the only person allowed close to him. The two men forged a friendship because both their countries were involved in the war, and he used to say that the King treated him more as a friend than a steward.

Another adventure, which Mr Conti Borda narrates with a smile, was when his father almost got arrested on arrival in the UK on the HMS Gambia.

"He had won a bunch of bananas, and when the ship docked, he started distributing them to children. Customs officials became suspicious and started asking him questions, since there was not a lot of that fruit in England due to rations of the Korean War (1950 - 1953). But he managed to get out of it," he said. Mr Conti Borda remembers his father leaving Malta on the HMS Manxman in the mid-1950s.

"It was the fastest ship in the Royal Navy, and on departure it started pitching heavily as it reached the open sea. My mum started crying because she thought that they would all drown."

Mr Conti Borda has been back to Egypt with his mother a few times on visits to family.

"I never regretted coming to Malta, even though initially there were some difficult times. But the Maltese were always very helpful and hospitable," she said.