Age was never a limiting factor for 82-year-old Lina Brockdorff who started studying late in life and got her Masters degree when she was already over 70.

Lina Brockdorff. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

…don’t isolate yourself. Don’t try to bury yourself before it is time

The bubbly woman has a mantra that keeps her going: to make use of every minute of her day.

“Time is the stuff that life is made of, no? I don’t like to waste time,” she says, insisting on spending a large chunk of it with her family and friends.

Ms Brockdorff, a mother of four and grandmother of seven, wants people to understand that it really is never too late to start studying.

“Some say: What’s the point in studying at this age? There’s always a point. It gives you a scope in life. If you take up some studies you meet people; it opens up a window into the world… Learn computer and you’ll never feel lonely,” she said.

Ms Brockdorff, a published author of Maltese novels and short stories, traces her passion for learning back to her childhood.

“I was a war child. I was nine when war broke out and my studies were interrupted,” she recalled in a nostalgic tone. When the war was over, her father wanted her to continue studying and she went back to school.

“There were no textbooks. We had one copy of a book for each subject and had to share it among all the class. I remember mummy and daddy madly copying books and passages from them so that I could sit for my O levels,” she said.

As a teenager, she started writing short stories and reading them out on Rediffusion (a cable radio network).

She wished to study medicine but her family did not have the money to send her to the University. So her mother enrolled her into a teacher’s training course without telling her.

“I was furious, I wanted a medical career. But the minute I started I said this was made for me and I never regret it. Even today, what I miss most is not being in a classroom,” she said.

Ms Brockdorff started her teaching career in a primary state school. She stopped when she got married and, as she raised her four children, she focused on writing.

“I was rocking the babies, one on each side, and writing on the typewriter,” she said. She eventually resumed her career as an English language teacher at St Aloysius College.

“Then, in 1991, I said to myself: The children are all grown up now, I want to start a University course,” she said.

She decided it would be theology, a subject that always interested her given her religious upbringing.

Together with a friend she signed up for a one-year introductory course in theology to test the waters because she was worried about her memory failing her.

After that it was a five-year Bachelors’ evening course and, in 2002, she got her Masters’ degree at the age of 72.

She then started mulling over the idea of starting her doctorate. But this gave rise to an internal thug of war as she had to decide whether to study or keep writing. She chose her writing and published her most recent novel Sireni u Serenati (Sirens and Serenades) in which she told her war experience as a child.

Ms Brockdorff just finished her 170th short story and is taking a writing break. However, she still reads a lot about theology and still writes articles for various religious magazines.

“You hear elderly people say: What am I living for? I might as well die. I have a pain here and my leg isn’t moving and la-di-da. But there is a scope. Life is beautiful, if we make it beautiful.

“I look forward to each day. It doesn’t mean you don’t get aches and pains at my age. That’s the cycle of life… My message is: Don’t isolate yourself. Don’t try to bury yourself before it’s time,” she said.