St George's Bay

Yesterday morning it was still raining when I set off early to get the bus to Valletta and then the 62 to St George's Bay at St Julian's.  I was going to a conference called 'Voice for All' organised by the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality and being held at the Intercontinental Hotel.  The conference presented the results from a research study on good practices against discrimination conducted in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Italy and Malta and part funded by EU.

The photo is of the street sign for Saint Rita street.  This is where I lived for five years when I was six years old until I was eleven.  

I weep for what has happened to St George's Bay.  Lourdes House where we lived for the first year has become a Burger King although I think the garage shop next to it is still there.  St Rita street is unrecognisable except that it still runs down in the same direction to a street on the valley floor leading down to the bay and I can still pick out the hairpin bend street leading round from the top end where we used to race our go-karts.  But the fields at the bottom of the valley are covered in hotels and apartments.  St Rita street is a maze of bars and hotdog places.  The Intercontinental Hotel has its grand entrance on the street at the bottom where we used to play cricket and the nunnery with its high wall and bell at the door that we pressed in trepidation when we needed to retrieve our ball has disappeared.  I think the hotel is built over the field beside our house and probably over our house as well.

The rocks where I learnt to dive have been covered over with concrete and turned into a beach club.  The lido where I sometimes went with my friends to swim with the luxury of changing rooms and diving boards has been covered totally with apartments.  They have planted palm trees on the beach but they can't stop the seaweed that has always washed up at this time of year!  Villa Rosa is still there proud on the hill at the head of the bay.  I think the wall between the rocks and Dragonara Palace is the same one that we used to climb cautiously around to go exploring the strange channels cut into the rocks beneath the old palace but of course now those rocks have been covered by pink apartments for the casino.  I also think that a plain, square stone building on the rocks by the beach is the same place that the nuns used to come to and get changed into their voluminous swimming gear.  They used to enter the water in a group and their black habit would blossom out around them as they formed a circle to chat.

When I came out of the conference, the rain was stopping and I walked around the bay taking photos of the devastation.  Then I decided I would walk over to Sliema taking the route that we sometimes did when I was a child.  Going down the hill to Spinola where the buses used to turn around, Dick's bar is still there on a corner and the Spinola Bazaar where I used to buy Beano comics is there at the side of the creek.  The front has been 'embellished' like St George's and so many other bays around Malta and for some reason a sculpture with two huge words 'LOVE' placed upside down face each other on either side of the promenade.  I used to go roller skating at Spinola at Rocky Vale rink and I think the area is still there but seems to be shut up.

The street up and over to Ballutta Bay is much as it was, as is the hill up the side of Ballutta Mansions to Sliema.  When I got to the top, I phoned my cousin and she directed me to walk the further ten minutes or so to her place where she warmed me up with coffee until her grandson arrived from school.  She has given me one of her brown woollen coats to keep me warm for the rest of the winter!

I now have the research study publication so will have to read up on the conference proceedings but St George's bay won't draw me back very often!