U tisbaħ missier …

by Sergio Grech

published by Merlin Publishers, 2021

Sergio Grech studied history at the University of Malta. He aired hundreds of cultural programmes on Radju Malta and Campus FM and edited the very popular series Bejn Storja u Miti. He is the author of four magnificent biographies and this time he is presenting a series of very amusing and moving anecdotes about himself as the father of his two children Elysia and Matthias.

I first met and got to know Grech in 1996, during Mario Micallef’s (Talenti Theatrical Company) rehearsals of Shakespeare’s hilarious play Il-Kummiedja tal-Iżbalji (A Comedy of Errors), which I had translated into Maltese for the Manoel Theatre stage. Grech was then a very young man full of smiles and vivacity. And I immediately noted that eventually he would be making a very good entry into the vast world of literature, particularly when history, historical events and historical personalities were involved.

The interesting series Bejn Storja u Miti testifies to his love of and familiarity with local history, as do his four superb and highly acclaimed biographies, which immediately put him in a class of his own in this genre of literature.

Now, we have in hand a book with a difference. This time, Grech has resorted to a sort of autobiography:  of himself as a parent, the father of Elysia and Matthias, to whom (besides his two nephews Liam and Alessio) he has dedicated this book.

The book has various colourful scenarios that a man goes through in his role as a parent

As I said, U tisbaħ missier... is an autobiography with a difference. Here, Grech recounts what millions of other men in the world have been, are, and will always be going through.

From the pre-marital days, the wedding itself and to what comes later; from the anxieties and the unforgettable emotive aura that surrounds the pregnancy of the mother to the supreme joy of the eventual birth of the child. And here, Grech represents and relates to all those men who, like him, were blessed with the birth of children, ultimately the crowning glory of love between a man and a woman.

The book is divided in a good number of brief narrative sections: many and various colourful scenarios that a man invariably goes through in his role as a parent. Some of the events are humorous and hilarious to a degree; others are tinged with sadness and tones of less happy days.

But everything is narrated with a smooth and vivacious tone that is evident of the author’s love for his wife, his children and his family. Indeed, Grech’s whole heart is in this beautiful and unusual book, which is a huge pleasure to read as well as to own.

U tisbaħ missier... is a book all parents should own. Its humanity is real, intimate, endearing and down to earth. This book is a pleasurable stroll in the path of the ideal family life, the particular circumstances that all families go through in both sad and happy moments. It reflects humanity in its noblest simplicities and its most difficult complications, its hard times and its satisfactions, all centred and dependent on love, in all its various and noble forms.