Thursday was dog day afternoon at the Dockyard School in Malta of the thirties for that black and white terrier accompanied the Headmaster, Lt.Cdr Plant, on an inspection of the scattered buildings of the School, taking the opportunity of the assembled pupils all being in the main hall for singing practice.Since I chose to absent myself from those proceedings one had to face the problem of the dog's acute sense of smell and I could find no hiding place.
Above the main hall was the dome, used as a storage for surplus books and it provided a suitable place to secrete oneself and browse whilst down below in the hall my fellow pupils warbled through such as "Cherry Ripe", "Greensleeves" and "The Stately Homes of England" accompanied on the piano by my class teacher, Sub Lt. Miles RN who as a full Captain himself was in charge of all Malta's Services Schools after the Second World War. Like all the senior teachers he wore the light blue colour background to the gold rings of rank on his uniform sleeve that denoted his educational function.
This small blue grey, somewhat oriental, dome can be seen across the Grand Harbour from Valletta's Upper Baracca up on the ramparts of the Cottonera Lines slightly to the right of the red dome of Zabbar Church (that is actually much further away but looks as though it is on the fortifications) and from it was afforded an excellent view around the south of Malta. Whilst I was at least free from that damned dog up there, its stairway was exposed to view of the hall itself and I only risked hiding there the once and so I was obliged to go underground to the air raid shelter as a refuge.
Mention of air raid shelter might seem strange for I am writing of the thirties before the War that was to devastate Malta (though the school itself survived the bombing and is now a part of the Maltese educational system as a Junior Lyceum). The Italian invasion of Ethiopia around 1935 brought the threat of conflict between Britain and Italy and so some air raid precautions were taken in Malta. By about 1937 however the crisis was over and the Fleet that had been moved to Alexandria in Egypt returned to its Maltese base.
The air raid shelter was beneath the school buildings in the casemates of the artillery facilities and if the reader is puzzled at this I would have to explain how the school up on the fortifications of Cottonera to the south of the Grand Harbour came about - but that will need another article. Suffice it to say that periodically, as an exercise, the entire school was marshalled in an orderly fashion into this long wide corridor that had been fitted with electric lighting - though we boys managed to chase the squealing girls into the darker recesses. These happy activities had ceased however and the entrance was locked but investigation found an alternative access through the ventilation holes that were intended to dissipate the gun-smoke of cannons that had long since been turned into razor blades or somesuch.
The main row of casemates was illuminated to some extent by the gun-ports themseves (They can still be seen on the Zabbar side of the Cottonera Lines just like their counterparts in the Lascaris Bastion in Valletta beneath the Barracca) but I had to light my way down into them (the electricity had been switched off of course) and employed our usual portable lighting for this sort of activity in the form of a candle inside a shiny tin can.
After a few Thursday afternoons down in the casemates I had the urge to go further afield , for there were all sorts of passageways and storage spaces but maybe an account of these and other tunnels and what I found there will appear in another article.
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