Sentimental Journey
One of the first pieces I wrote in this blog series
mentioned my time in Malta as a pre-school kid, and the dysfunctional
relationship I had with the nuns who ran the nursery school which I attended.
See ‘Christopher Plummer and the Nuns’, February 6th, 2021. I didn’t
give the full story at the time. It will follow in a minute, but first, let’s return
to the present day.
You will be aware, from my droning on and on about it, that
I was treated for prostate cancer this year. Treatment seems to have been
successful, and in general I have got off a bloody sight more lightly than do
most cancer patients. Once the side-effects of treatment had abated for the
most part, Linda and I decided to have a holiday and get away from it all. We
had six days in Malta and four days in Siracusa in Sicily. This was pretty altruistic
on Linda’s part as she did not have the personal interest in Malta that I did,
wanting to see the place again after more than sixty years.
We visited the houses in Sliema (the outside of them) where I
had lived as an infant, and raised a glass to the family in the Nappa Bar, my
dad’s old local. From the appearance and the announcement on the board, it is clear even now that the latter is a place where the old fellow would have been comfortable. I didn’t get all tearful and sentimental at these places, as I
had expected to. The only sadness I felt was one afternoon when swimming in the
sea. Linda preferred the hotel swimming pool, but I loved climbing down the
slippery ladder in the rocks and getting into the Med, which at that latitude was
just as warm as the hotel pool. One day as I was swimming alone in the sea, it
occurred to me that as a kid I had been a right little swine and I felt rather
sorry that I hadn’t been nicer to my late mum and dad.
Digression: my immediate family are a bit puzzled at my
liking for swimming in cold water, and when they were younger, my sons Bill and
Tom would respond to my bathing in the sea by putting on a Scottish accent and saying,
‘I’m Stephen Duffy. The water is as warm as toast. I’m completely off my head.’
Anyway, I assure you that the sea at St Julian’s in Malta
was as warm as toast.
OK, here comes the story of the nuns. I must have been three
or four years old at this time, but this story comes from memory. Every weekday
morning, I used to attend a nursery school run by nuns. As I recall, we said a
lot of prayers and did very little else. My mum would leave me there around
half past eight in the morning and pick me up at noon. Well, one day, after an
absence of about a week due to my having a nasty cold, she deposited me at the nursery
school, and to my surprise, instead of sitting in rows chanting prayers, we were
herded onto a bus, which took us to what I now know to be a very pleasant park,
San Anton Gardens. For me, however, the experience was extremely unsettling.
I wandered around for a while, wondering what I was doing
there. Towards the middle of the day, I heard what PG Wodehouse called the
silent luncheon gong of the soul, but it was clear that I wasn’t going to be
picked up by my mum and taken home for lunch. All my little schoolmates had the
most lavish packed lunches but refused to share them with me, insisting that I must
have my own lunch somewhere. When I asked the nuns if I could have some of
their picnic, they too assured me that I must have my own packed lunch somewhere.
I did more wandering about, searching for my non-existent lunch, peed my
trousers, and gave up on ever seeing my family again (such were the
difficulties of communication with both the nuns and my fellow-students).
I didn’t know this at the time, but my mum turned up at the
convent to collect me at noon, only to be told that today was the nursery school’s
annual outing to San Anton Gardens and I would be brought back on the bus at
four o’ clock. She found this distressing, as you can imagine. She was there to
meet me off the bus on my return and it was a considerable relief for both of
us to be reunited.
There is a sequel to this story, which my dad told me later.
Apparently, after the San Anton Gardens adventure, I dug my heels in and
refused to go back to the nursery school. At around this time, by standing on
tiptoe and stretching my arm up, I found that I could reach the front door
handle, and I was very proud of being able to open the door if anyone rang the
bell.
One day, the doorbell rang and I ran to answer it. On
opening the door I was confronted by two nuns, who were collecting in aid of
some charity. To my four-year-old mind, however, they had noted my absence from
the nursery school and were taking appropriate action. In utter terror, I ran
back down the hall, crying, ‘They’ve come for me!’
****************************
Anyway, Linda and I had a very pleasant holiday in Malta and
Siracusa. It wasn’t the most action-packed adventure, but it was nice to get
away from it all in the sunshine for a few days. Incidentally, our hotel in
Sicily, Domus Mariae Benessere, was managed by nuns. The personnel were all lay
people, but occasionally we saw one of the Sisters calling in to talk to the
reception staff. And it’s the first time I have stayed in a hotel which had its
own chapel within the building.
Chapel of St Philip Neri in our hotel in Siracusa
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Changing the subject altogether, since my illness, but not
because of it, I have started using the public library again. I was an avid
user of public libraries up to my mid-thirties. Then the kids came along, and
when they were little, I would take them to the library every Saturday morning,
and they would borrow books, but I never did. So for the last thirty years, all
my reading has been of books bought either new or from charity shops. Then a couple
of months ago, I was in the library to use their scanning and printing
facilities, when I noticed that they had all these books (would you believe?)
that I might want to read. I have since become an enthusiastic borrower, and
have rediscovered the fact that public libraries are great places. We have
already lost many of them. We mustn’t lose any more.
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