Can I just say, to all of you who have been reading my blog, and the story I finished yesterday. I would like to thank you. As I said at the very beginning, this is a story, however, the names used are those of people I know, within my own family and friends. Like my own family, the Palmers, Ken, Dorothy, Kelvin and my younger sister Penny, and of coarse myself, Michael or Mike as I preferred to be called.
Yes, I did go to Malta in 1956, and I did go to Tal Handaq school, even the canoe is true, except I use to go out in it with my brother, we all came back to England in 1959 and I joined the Royal Navy at Gosport, H.M.S. St Vincent, but I did go back to Malta with the navy, and of coarse to the Far East, Middle East and across the pond to the U.S.A. But to be honest, I hated going there, to me, the yanks always had this view that they were better than us in England, we have bigger buildings, we have bigger warships, I did have a right old go at a couple of American sailors who were bragging, I said they had the biggest underwater fleet in the world, and when they mentioned submarines, I said, no, Pearl Harbour, did not go down well, but as all the films showed, if that idiot had accepted that what was seen on radar, was not a flock of birds, they would have been ready. Like I said, you people are always late, even both world wars, you came in two years after the rest of the world.
So for me, my home ground when in the navy, was the Far East and the Med. Some of you may be asking where the name Nann came from, well to be truthful, I have been married to the same wonderful woman for the past 30 years, we have been together for 33 to date, and her name is Maureen Ann, but I only call her Maureen, I do call her other things as well, but only if I get annoyed with her, happily that is very rare. We sort of have an understanding, if we don't see eye to eye, we sit down and talk it through, and if on those very rare occasions that we have a bust up, I usually take a walk through the village for half an hour, and when I get back, things have calmed down and we can talk the problem through. But like I say, this is very rare, in fact, in the 33 years we have been together, I think we have only had maybe two or three occasions when thing have gone that way. Most of the time, we know what the other is thinking, we can end each other's sentences and we can feel each others worries.
Both Maureen and I have been back to Malta a load of times, we would spend our summers out there, not just walking, and sunbathing, we both liked to go to places of beauty and marvel at the things we saw, but having lived in Malta during the summer months, Maureen and I would stay in our hotel room when the sun was at its height, and the heat was almost unbearable, then as the day cooled we would venture out, normally after our evening meal and enjoy the nightlife, and I am not talking disco's I am talking about sitting in maybe Tonys bar and watching Maltese life pass us by at a slow steady pace. That was the Malta we both loved, it was the same Malta that we as a family watched back in the 50s from our balcony at Peita.
I still have one more book to let you all read, but I will save that for the new year, for the next few days, I will give you an inside to my life story, unlike the book, it's good up until I was 17, then went downhill after that, until Maureen came into my life. It was her idea that I write the Canoe, as she said you had a great time in Malta as a teenager, why not use those memories and write about them, turn them into a book, that people can read and enjoy. Stay safe, and thank you all.
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