Repairing Gozo’s roads

Can the government provide the resources to repair and resurface Gozo’s roads, please? Not just the main roads but the many artery roads connecting to them.

Compared to Malta’s roads they are a disgrace.

Joe Thwaites – Għarb

Mdina residents, beware

Valletta has changed from being a city for gentlemen to a city for musicians who keep residents awake after the stroke of midnight.

Beware Mdina. It could be your turn next. Changing from the Silent City to the Noisy City.

Joseph Cachia – St Paul’s Bay

Safe landings

German Ambassador Walter Hassmann (left) and Peter Micallef-Eynaud.German Ambassador Walter Hassmann (left) and Peter Micallef-Eynaud.

This augury, expressed in Luftwaffe pilots’ parlance, would be “Hals-und-Beinbruch”. Paradoxically.

Last Monday, my wife and I bid farewell to Walter Hassmann, the outgoing German ambassador to Malta and his wife over a pleasant luncheon.

We gentlemen, both aircraft pilots, took leave of our ladies and set off for the Malta Aviation Museum (photo) where we were met and guided by Ray Polidano, the museum’s founder and ‘motor’. We appreciated the tour for which I thank him.

There, Hassmann inspected the last surviving Bell 47G-2 helicopter ‘Echo’ (registered 9H-AAE, in my time) of a stable of four that formed part of a very generous, comprehensive gift made by West Germany to Malta in 1972. (See my article ‘Maltese military aviation: born 50 years ago’, Times of Malta, May 30, 2022.)

That gift comprised aircraft, spares, equipment, kit and first-class military-standard training for technicians and pilots (of which I was one beneficiary). The helicopter flight was born on May 29, 1972. I was privileged to be the original flight commander.

It remains my desire to have an appropriate, very dignified ceremony to express Malta’s appreciation and gratitude to Germany. I could only, last Monday, express my personal appreciation.

For the ambassador and his lady wife, on the new stage in their life, I wish clear skies and fair winds and safe landings. I would be grateful to the German embassy were this letter to be forwarded to them.

Peter Micallef-Eynaud – St Julian’s

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