Previous msgs. concerning Malta were interesting and brought back many memories but no mention was made concerning Birzebbuga. Remember the rock wall that separated the main village street from the bay? In the place of the small rock shore line there is now a wide and several hundred yard long bright sandy beach. Pubs there were within walking distance
at lunch time for SOME. The old Red Lion and White Horse nolonger exist. I, with my wife, visited good Maltese friends in a little village of Mqabba in Sept '93 to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. The family name is Briffa. Julian Briffa was our batman in Chiefs quarters and did some work for the crews in the quanset huts. Some may remember him. He died last year. While there we revisited many sites. The BIG changes we noted was the many new major hotels to accomadate the tourist business, not only in the Valetta area but in practcally every decent sized town with waterfront. There are,now, three huge desalianization plants to provide fresh water which, as you remember, was/is a much sought after item. The site of HMS Halfar where all the chief's quarters and NAFI were located is now a very modern deep water port which they told me is suffering financially due to the lack of import/export traffic.
All of the quanset huts on the airfield site are gone. Some have been moved to adjoining areas for use as commercial business buildings.
We did visit Gozo and found little change. Still some small market trade and several small home sites for lace products. The high walled church building forming most of one side of the town hasn't changed at all that we could see.
