Steep into History

Should you arrive in Valletta. Malta G.C. at sea level you will exert some strenuous effort if you are to walk the main street. Steep hills reminding me of Windsor Hill with a bit of 'Meor in the middle and the end lead you up the sides of Mt.Scibberas where you are rewarded by a multitude of delights.

Highly recommended would be a wander about Barrakka Gardens, Higher and Lower which overlook Grand Harbour. Magnificent.

However, if you arrive by bus you are dropped at the very gate to the city so elevation changes are (mostly) circumvented. This was just as well because rising at the crack of late morning after coffee#1 and struggling to do justice to coffee#2 one left with what one had dropped on the floor. Thus jeans and not shorts, shoes not sandals were the rig of the day. Wholly inappropriate.

The Wow!'s tumbled one on top of the other, just sitting contemplating and looking, not to mention perspiring was enough.

Sat here now, glass of Caravaggio Red, showered, shorted and not quite as sweltered one remains a bit overwhelmed.

Upper Barrakka Gardens, opposite the building recently made famous on News24 as HM QE2 welcomed the CHOGM to her meeting. Over to her left tucked in a shady corner amid a myriad of plaques overseen by a bust of W.S.Churchill is one pillar, passed by by most which bears the inscription:


"Few could vie with him in usefulness of talent

And fewer still possessed a heart more benevolent

Or disposition more social

He died in the prime of life

But lived long enough to know

How fully he had secured the respect

And esteem of all good men."


You need to move to the other side to find that this being:

"To the memory of
Clement Martin Edwards
Lieut Col of His Majestys First Ceylon Reg
Who died at Valletta
After a protracted and severe illness
On the 17 March 1816
Aged 36 years"




Looking around at the host of memorials mostly paid for by people who knew them it's hard not to be moved when you think about what's happened here during The Great Siege of  1565, the Siege of 1940 - 1943, The Napoleonic Wars and numerous others confrontations over 3000 years or so.

Clement Martin Edwards, never heard of him but what a man to have earned such an epithet at 36. Like so many others who suffered here that no one knows of but did great things at great expense.

Makes me a bit ashamed at having moaned a little about not being in shorts and sandals on a hot day.