Ah Nostalgia.
What a double-edged sword.
I look back on my childhood wistfully – sun-dappled mornings in Marsalforn, long languid days spent snorkelling, swimming till our fingers turned into prunes, guzzling grapes at the water’s edge – feet dangling in the cool blue Mediterranean Sea, salt-cracked skin, long afternoon naps lazily brushing away the slow-green-persistent Gozitan flies, evenings back down on the beach – adults with a beer in hand – Pawlu Profs singing bawdy sing-a-long songs and playing his guitar.
Ah Nostalgia.
What a double-edged sword.
I look back on the 80s in horror. Horror at the fashion – shoulder-pads that should have come with a health warning, triple-layered frilly skirts that made girls look like they belonged on an ice-cream cone, Little Lord Fauntleroy ruffled shirts and knickerbockers that frankly did no one any favours, enough blue eye-shadow to warrant me mishearing the lyrics of ‘Moonlight Shadow’ as ‘carried away by the blue eye-shadow’, and neon-Fluro everything that made us all look like carnival floats.
Horror at how afraid we were. I look back and remember the fear. Fear of bomb-threats, fear of mass-meetings because of the likelihood of getting hurt, fear of the look on your mother’s face when you came home with the long-queued-for-ration-carded meagre bags of flour and sugar and she sees that they’re full of maggots, fear of waking up to no electricity again, fear of waking up and not being able to wash yourself before school nor flush the toilet, fear of waking up and not having a school to go to, fear of being beaten up by Lorry Sant’s thugs during a peaceful protest, fear of always having to keep a steel rod in the car “just in case”, fear of your parents being thrown in jail for 48-hour ‘interrogations’ without any notice – just because, fear of your house being raided with no warning, fear of your phone being tapped, fear for the future, instinctive fear of the police and the judiciary system – knowing that if push came to shove you were ultimately fucked – there was no higher authority that could help you.
Oh I look back on the 80s in horror.
And like all good horror movies – this one has a sequel.
The 80s Redux – The Fear Returns.
Today the judiciary failed us.
Today democracy died.
Today our freedom has been threatened.
#StopTheAbuse
Pea's Brain 
Ajma pea you’re the best. You made me relive my life xxxx
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I apologise for any trauma I may have caused 🙂
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Lol so true Pea – brava it’s good to remind us of those terribly horrible days of the 80’s xxx
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It truly was a horrible time 😦
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I remember it clearly too. Tear gas and not being able to go to school in my o level year. The fires and the banging. All so scary. Our lives were totally dominated by politics then. It calmed down. But now it’s happening again. Not so much the physical scary but still. The damage they’re doing. The cheek of it. But what’s worse is the attitude .. mhux xorta… live and let live.. a minister is entitle to his personal life.. insejtu x’għamiltu inthom… That is more scary. On how low integrity and morals, principles and ethics have become. Doing the right thing? What? I’m ok so f u jack 😳😳😳 l’aqwa li the electricity bill has reduced 😡😡
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Those days are unfortunately etched in my memory 😞
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Hehe – I sometimes ‘reminisce’. We could have the makings of the 80s Show 🙂 Does anyone remember ‘Water boy’? That magical can of foam that covered layers of shit and piss in a veritable hamburger of human excrement (ok it’s graphic – and I’m not even vegan :)). But it was exactly like that – it was a last resort, when the water supply failed and even the well dried up. And then that shudder as life water tried to flow back in the metallic piping, the hissing, gurgling sound of magic water coming back…it would be brown, covered in rust particles. After a while it would clear and then – then it was frantic panic – with every conceivable container under the sun being filled with water waiting for the next drought.
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