January 7, 1963, when I was not yet 15 years old, was my first day of work: I was employed, after an interview with the newspaper’s owner, Mabel Strickland, as a junior reporter with the Times of Malta. My weekly wage was a princely £3 10s, equivalent to €8.15 (not adjusted for inflation), with six-monthly increases of 10s a week! 

The newspaper’s editor at the time was the formidable Tom Hedley, who wrote his daily editorials in longhand (and in impeccable English) for his secretary to type. Hedley had a firm hand and brooked no nonsense from his staff: he once suspended a senior reporter for three days for regularly coming in late.

In the newsroom, I was under the care of the endearing but flighty news editor, John Mizzi, a lifelong bachelor known to generations of Scouts as “Cubby”. John was also the local stringer (correspondent) of the Daily Telegraph and simply knew everything there was to know about the Royal Navy – and the Royal Family.

At the time Malta was still an important British military base, with thousands of servicemen, many of them accompanied by their families, it is no wonder that at the time the newspaper featured two Services pages every day, edited by the late J.P. Scicluna, who in 1965 took over from Hedley’s successor Charles Grech-Orr as Reuters correspondent in Malta.

I received no formal training, but John first had me accompany senior reporters on their assignments. One of my first experiences was accompanying Fred Barry on board the liner Canberra in Grand Harbour to interview passengers after fire broke out on their cruise-ship off Malta.

Laurence Grech.

After a month or so I was sent out on coverages on my own, and picked up enough confidence to be assigned to cover the Magistrates’ Courts (then located at the bottom of Old Bakery Street). I got used to this and started toying with the idea of joining the Law course at the University. But I soon realised that journalism was my true calling.

In December, 1963, I was moved to The Sunday Times of Malta to substitute a sub-editor who was on leave for three weeks. But those “three weeks” eventually became 44 years, as the sub-editor never returned and I was to stay on at the Sunday Times for the rest of my working life – first as sub-editor, then as assistant editor, deputy editor and, in 1991, editor.

At the time the newspaper had just 20 pages, with the Classified section taking up just half a page. Yet under the editorship of George Sammut, who became my mentor, it distinguished itself for its varied features on aspects of Melitensia, opinion pieces, and political commentary (George was the original “Roamer”, which continued to be published until the passing away of its long-time author, John Micallef, some years ago).

Sammut’s editorship was cut short in May 1965, when he suffered a heart attack. He returned to work – as editorial consultant – five months later. He was succeeded by his assistant, Manuel Gauci, who spent just seven months on the job and eventually emigrated to Canada, and in March 1966, by Tony Montanaro, who had been editor of the now defunct Il-Berqa, the Times of Malta’s Maltese-language sister daily, for some years. (Incidentally, Il-Berqa still holds the local record for copies sold in one day – 66,000 – when it covered the 1956 Għallis murder trial in various editions).

Montanaro was into politics in a big way, and not only because he contested various elections as a candidate of Mabel Strickland’s party, but also because he was parliamentary editor for decades and knew Maltese politics and politicians inside out. In December 1976, Tony asked me to take over parliamentary editing and reporting, which I then did for 12 years.

Black Monday – October 15, 1979 – threatened the very existence of the Times and Sunday Times. When I saw the fire started by Labour thugs engulfing Strickland House, I thought my journalistic career had come to an end, and I even considered emigrating to Australia.

However, the newspapers maintained their record of never missing an issue after it was decided to print at the Independence Press for a few weeks. 

In time, the newspapers started to grow again, with part of the Sunday Times printed on Fridays, because of limited capacity. There was a huge growth in advertising too, as the economy continued to expand. After I took over from Montanaro in 1991, the newspaper continued to expand, with some issues reaching 240 pages, necessitating advance printing of sections of it from as early as Wednesday.

I stepped down as editor in October, 2007, when I was appointed editorial consultant, and eventually director of Allied Newspapers Limited, a position I still hold today. I retired as editorial consultant in 2013, after a 50-year career.
My love affair with journalism has lasted a lifetime, and is still strong today.

Laurence Grech is a former editor of The Sunday Times of Malta.

This article first appeared in a commemorative supplement marking 85 years of Times of Malta. Contributions will be published online every day between August 11 and August 20. Read other contributions.