Malta 5 – World War II; le laurier rose

This is the last post in my series of five on Malta. From 1940 to 1942, Malta was bombed heavily by the Germans and Italians as they attempted to take control of the island. For months no supplies could get through, and the Maltese people were near starvation. In 1943, after the siege was over, the island of Malta was awarded the George Cross by King George VI for its national bravery.

While in Valletta I visited the Lascaris War Rooms, an underground complex of tunnels and chambers that housed the War Headquarters from whence the defence of the island was conducted during World War II. (The War Rooms are difficult to find, despite numerous signposts, and I had to stop twice to ask directions.)

The temperatures were cold under ground. There were five of us on our tour, one other woman besides me; she had very little English; her husband translated for her, but she grew restless after a while. The guide who led our tour – I guessed from his accent that he was Dutch-born –- was enthusiastic and knowledgeable. He showed us the large wall map, with accompanying ladder, where strategies were plotted.

Our guide also pointed out the office where General Eisenhower spent time. Lascaris was the advance Allied HQ from which Eisenhower and his Supreme Commanders directed the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943; apparently, Eisenhower wrote in his diary that he did not particularly enjoy Lascaris.  

 

Once you start looking, there are many reminders of World War II in Malta. When I went to the National Archives in Rabat, I saw a pin board with information about the need to collect people’s wartime stories before it was too late. Accompanying this was a newspaper clipping that featured a love story involving a young Maltese woman who met a British soldier much older than herself. They got married but when war was declared, she went to stay with relatives in America, where she felt she would be safer. The two were eventually reunited in Malta, but the husband died not long afterwards. I thought as I read the story that she would have been better to remain in Malta with her husband. She probably did not know the war would last so long; also, she might have been like me and believed she had all the time in the world, that her husband, although so much older than her, would always be there.

Le laurier rose

It is frustrating, is it not, when a name is on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t bring it to mind? This happened to me when I saw a tall shrub in the grounds of the Royal Navy Hospital in Mfarta; the shrub one to the right of the picture with white flowers and dark green leaves.  I recognised it instantly – we have one in the side garden of our house in Wellington; it has become very tall, nurtured by soil enriched with coffee chaff that Bill dug in during his years managing a coffee factory – but I couldn’t for the life of me remember its name.

After this first sighting, I began noticing these shrubs, or small trees, elsewhere in Malta, for instance lining a walking path at Marsalforn Bay on the island of Gozo. I remembered that the leaves are considered toxic, and I did an internet search along these lines but I could not locate this shrub.

A few weeks later, when dining with French friends at a restaurant in Burgundy. I saw a small, neatly-trimmed example of the shrub in a pot. My friends told me it was a laurier rose. I thought this a pretty name but it brought me no closer to the English name.

In the end I consulted my son by email, and he told me the shrub was the oleander. It is widespread in the Mediterranean region and can also be found in parts of North Africa and other warm countries. For me, now, the oleander, le laurier rose, will always be associated with my visit to Malta.

Blog by Ann Barrie