Sometime in the first months of 1951, when I was in Primary Standard II, music teacher George Theuma, a tall, spectacled man, entered our classroom and, after talking to our teacher, picked up a piece of chalk and wrote some sentences on the large framed blackboard resting on an easel.

We kept quiet, anxious to see what he was going to write.

When he finished, after striking a musical tuning fork against the surface of a bench, he turned to us and let us listen to what was a ‘do’ musical note, produced by the vibrating fork.

Then he tried to make us sing that note.

“All together, now, ‘doooooooo’.”

And we all repeated for several times ‘doooooooo, dooooooo…’.

Then he read what he had written on the blackboard… it was the ‘God Save the King’. And we read and repeated with him the text in English, which we had hardly started to learn.

Theuma was teaching us how to sing the UK’s national anthem as Princess Elizabeth – King George VI’s first child – was going to visit Gozo. Rabat’s sive Victoria’s schoolchildren were to greet Her Royal Highness in certain places where she was going to pass or visit.

On that day, with small colourful Union Jack flags affixed to a short, round wooden stick in hand, my class had to gather in Racecourse Street, had to wave the flag and sing the anthem when the princess – in a car – drove by and passed from in front of us.

Malta’s head of state

Before becoming independent on September 21, 1964, Malta was part of the British Empire, a British Crown colony, and, as such – in our daily life – we used the pound sterling and 10-shilling notes, the half-crown, the shilling, the ‘silver’ six-pence, the 12-sided bronze three-pence and the round bronze penny and half penny. The sovereign’s face was on the paper notes and obverse of the coins. We travelled abroad with a British passport, flew the Union Jack next to the Maltese flag and honoured the British monarch as our own independent head of state. (This was retained until Malta became a Republic, in 1974.) 

In my first years as teacher, an A2 poster with the queen used to hang in our classes.

At school, from childhood, we were given some information about the British Royal family.

Ġabra ta’ Ward

It was in the Ġabra ta’ Ward collection of short, interesting and edifying stories and sweet rhythmic poems, compiled by E. B. Vella (printed by the Oxford University Press, in England), that we gained our first knowledge of the ruling king.

The collection featured a short dialogue between Salvu and Karmenu, with a small frame with a line drawing of the face of the sovereign against a red background within, entitled ‘Viva r-Re!’, reproduced on one page of the school reader.

In English, the dialogue went on like this:“Salv, did you ever see the king?”“No, Karm, I never saw any king.”“I learnt that, a long time ago, my father saw the king.”“I wonder how happy he was to see the king of this land!”“Long live the king! Long live the king!”

After reading this text, the teacher gave us some information about the reigning King George VI.

Princess Elizabeth visits Gozo

On April 2, 1951, Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, visited Gozo. It was the first official visit by a member of the British royal family to the island of Calypso.

During her day visit, besides Victoria, the future queen – together with Prince Philip – visi­ted Ta’ Sannat, where she was offered a piece of lace work by Ġużeppa Debrincat, the village archpriest’s mother. 

The royal couple proceeded to Ta’ Ċenċ, where a large water reservoir was being built.

I still remember the happy children shouting while waiting for the princess to pass by and then the order to start singing the British anthem and wave the small Union Jacks as the car, in which she sat smiling and waving to us, drove past in front of us.

Oh, yes, we were happy to see the charming, royal princess!

After the rally, all of us were led to Ta’ l-Orjenti’s large yard nearby (today a complex of shops), where we were given a small paper bag with some sweets.

It was a memorable day for schoolchildren; I have a vivid memory of that occasion.

The Scout Promise

I learnt about the king from somewhere else, too.

After receiving the sacrament of Holy Confirmation, I started to attend daily religion lessons at the Don Bosco Oratory, in St Augustine’s Square, Victoria. There, I also became an altar boy and, at the age of 10, enrolled in the Salesian Boy Scouts group.

One of the first things I had to do was to learn by heart the Scout Promise – originally conceived by the founder of the movement,  Lord Robert Baden-Powell:

‘On my honour I promise that I will do my best

To do my duty to God and the King;

To help other people at all times;

To obey the Scout Law.’

At that age we learnt we had a king, who represented our country, King George VI.

Death of the King

It was during the break between the morning and afternoon school sessions, while playing outside the school premises in Vajrinġa Street that, sometime in February 1952, news reached Gozo that King George VI, the charismatic sovereign, had passed away.

The news spread among us students as we waited for the premises to open for the afternoon session.

I heard more news about the death of the king later on that day from my father who used to listen to the BBC news on a large valve radio when he was at home.

King George VI died on the morning of February 6, 1952, at the age of 56. He was actually discovered dead in bed. It was determined that he had died of a coronary thrombosis.

Princess Elizabeth, who had spent some time of her youth in Malta, would soon become Queen of England, so we were told in class when the news became official.

I was almost 10 years old, in Standard III.

A child by painter De Lazlo

In a pull-out (I do not recall from which magazine) I have in my ‘royal’ collection, an article ‘The Gilded Cage’ by British museum curator and author Sir David Towry Piper is illustrated with various beautiful photos of, colourful, realistic pictures and works of art from the queen’s collection which were put up in an exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace, sometime in the 1960s. 

Among these, there is a photo of a painting of seven-year-old Princess Elizabeth, created in 1933 by Philip Alexius de László, an Anglo-Hungarian painter known particularly for his portraits of royal and aristocratic personages.

Magazines

My father had collected some other magazines too. Born in 1914, during World War II, he was in his late 20s.

Among his collection were copies of the magazine Illustrated, which I still keep A solitary page portrays a colourful painting of a charming, smiling, young Princess Elizabeth.

Christened Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, she was born on April 21, 1926. In the painting she looks like in her teens – 15-16 perhaps. The page is from a special Illustrated edition.

It is a portrait of a young, happy, beautiful, very attractive teenager. But already she shows royalty in her blood. She looks humble and almost shy  wearing a jacket on a grey shirt and a beret.

A prince is born

Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten married on November 20, 1947. Their first child – a son – was born on November 14, 1948. A month later, he was christened Charles, Philip, Arthur, George by the Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher.

From another special Illustrated souvenir magazine of May 3, 1952, my father gathered an A3-size page with a colourful picture of a painting of the three-year-old prince, heir to the British throne. It is a painting by Ludmilla Trapp, privately commissioned by Queen Elizabeth.

The princess is crowned queen

The princess was crowned Queen Elizabeth II, queen of the UK and the British Empire, on June 2, 1953, at Westminster Abbey, in London. She was still 27 years old. (The coronation was held more than one year after her father’s death.)

Special commemorative editions

For the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, among special souvenir periodicals, the publishers of the weekly magazine Everybody’s of Fleet Street, London, published two issues: Everybody’s – First Special Coronation Issue and Everybody’s – Coronation Number. It seems that the first issue sold out well at four pence per copy; the second was sold at six pence and on p. 45, an advert offered the copy by post to “friends and relatives abroad” for just nine pence.

Every week, my father used to send me to buy him Everybody’s magazine from ‘Karmnu ta’ Baskal’, who owned a bookstore in Palm Street, Victoria, besides a Singer sewing machine and refrigerator business.

I do not remember buying any of the two Everybody’s special issues. But surely my father had purchased the second issue – the Coronation Number. He treasured it and it reached me in good condition, although without the front cover and pages 3 and 4.

The 1951 penny

There was a time when I started to collect the English pennies in use in everyday life on our islands; it could have been in my late teens.

Someone had given me one of the last large copper pennies minted up to 1860. It has the effigy of young Queen Victoria on the obverse. Such large coins measured some 34mm in diameter and weighed 18.8g. After the transition from copper to bronze that same year, these large heavy pennies were replaced by smaller and lighter bronze coins.

As new pennies came in, I began to organise the collection by date. I began reading a lot about the minting of coins and eventually started a correspondence with a numismatic company in England and subscribed to its monthly publication: Seaby’s Coin and Medal Bulletin (1945-1991).

Observing the coins as the collection grew, I learnt that, for example, in 1919, pennies were struck at three different times and near the date an ‘H’ or ‘KN’ were placed in two of the three different coins produced. I also found out that, in 1933, the banks were in possession of such large stocks of pennies that it was decided not to mint pennies for that year; only some six or seven pennies were minted with the date 1933, specifically to be placed under the foundation stone of three buildings.

I also learnt that of the 1951 British penny, only a small number of coins were struck. I feel lucky to treasure one such sample.

The obverse of the coin shows the bare (uncrowned) head of King George VI facing left. Below the neck truncation, in small letters, there are the artist’s initials HP (for Thomas Humphrey Paget). Around the monarch’s head, the legend: GEORGIVS VI D: G: BR: OMN: REX FIDEI DEF. [Latin for: ‘George the Sixth, by the Grace of God, King of all the Britons, Defender of the Faith’ − a title bestowed by Pope Leo X on King Henry VIII in 1521, when the latter criticised the Protestant reformer Martin Luther. The title was, however, revoked when Henry broke with Rome in 1533. But, in 1534, the English parliament conferred it again on the king who, as supreme governor of the Church of England, was defender of the Anglican faith.]

The reverse of the coin shows, within a beaded border, the figure of Britannia – the female personification of Great Britain. She is seated, facing right, wearing a crested Corinthian helmet. She has a flowing dress and is resting her right hand on a shield with the combined crosses of the Union Flag. She holds a trident in her left hand. In the background, there are sea waves and on the left is a lighthouse. Around, there is the value and denomination: one penny. In exergue, there is the date 1951.

I also have a pound sterling note with the face of King George V facing a depiction of St George, patron saint of England, killing the mythical dragon.

Queen Elizabeth II visits Gozo 

Still, the most memorable experience [perhaps!] of childhood was yet to come.

The newly-crowned Queen Elizabeth II was to pay a visit to Gozo on May 7, 1954.

As schoolchildren, we were told that we were to greet the queen as ‘Her Majesty’ during a rally in her honour. We were also given a golden colour, large, soft metal medal with the face of the queen on the obverse and Malta’s coat of arms on the reverse; we had to attach this to our shirts on the day of the rally.

However, on the day the queen came to Gozo, I was called on duty as a Salesian Boy Scout. All members of the group were assigned a responsibility during the visit. The queen had to pay a visit to Mgr Joseph Pace, Bishop of Gozo. I was one of the boy scouts to line up the steps leading to the Bishop’s Palace in Race Course Street, and, incidentally, was caught in a photo looking up at the queen as she was leaving the Bishop’s Palace. I was 12.

I do not remember what feelings I experienced when I saw the queen from so close. But I still remember the occasion well.

The queen passed by me while on her way down the steps of the Bishop’s Palace, smiling, waving to the schoolchildren with their small flags and who were shouting with joy. Surely, she was paying attention not to slip… unquestionably unconcerned about a young British-Maltese subject, who was so eager to render her a service and at the same time happy to see her from such a close distance!

A silver wedding

On Monday, November 20, 1972, the royal couple, Elizabeth and Philip, celebrated their silver wedding anniversary. 

On the previous Friday, the Daily Mirror − among several special publications – published a special Souvenir Issue. I had bought a copy of that edition and I still treasure it among the other material related to the queen which I have in my collection.

The publication is full of photos and snippets about the couple’s life. Among these, it was said that Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth had been courting steadily but secretly since 1945; that Philip – sixth in line to the Greek throne – had to become a naturalised British subject; that, soon after his war service, Philip grew a beard which he shaved when his beloved Elizabeth told him that beard was only for old men; and that the couple would have an austerity wedding. 

We were also told that the couple had eight wedding cakes, one of which weighed 500lb and stood nine feet tall; and that the ceremony at Westminster Abbey went without a hitch; and that people sang and danced in the streets, while the wedding ceremony was taking place.

Among the several photos reproduced in this particular edition, there is one which really struck me: the queen and Prince Philip are caught sharing a hilarious moment: they were watching army recruits during a training display.