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THE SIGHTS & SOUNDS OF OUR YESTERDAYS
By : Mary & Patricia
The most beautiful sound
is when I dream that I'm at home
with my parents.
We are playing some games
'Five Stones' ('Hames Caghqiet')
or 'I spy with my little eye'.
This used to make us laugh
My mother used to say
'I spy with my little toe, with my little finger'..
I remember the sounds on the radio
The songs that my brother Victor used to play on the radio, on the Redifusion
The requests on the radio -
It was called ' Popping the Pops'.
The other game we played -
There was Charlie, my other brother, my sister, the nun, and Tessie.
It was about a letter you would send to your pretend friend, and you wait eagerly to see who has it.
When I was young, with my family
My mum and dad
I remember the sounds of the war
The sounds of the bombs
Aeroplanes diving
The sound of the sirens
I remember the smell of the candles in the shelter
We used to write on the walls holding these candles
There's a strong smell of humidity
Water is coming out of the rocks, always dripping
We had a cradle there in the shelter
The cradle is still hanging
It's of baby Vincent
It belonged to my brother
It still hangs there
We had bunks
We said the Rosary with Johnny Navarro
We'd pray every day.
They used to give us blue cloth
out of those parachutes
to make the cradle
I used to carry the cradle
when I went to hang the clothes
on the roof.
You used to take the baby with you
in the Moses basket.
'What did courage mean?'
It meant not being afraid
Even though the bombs fell and we would pray
'This was a mine and it fell in the sea'.
You feel everywhere trembling.
Courage means not being afraid
when you have good friends, real friends.
They give you courage.
What does it mean to be grown up ?
It is to have family, who is close to you
Having children
Passing memories to your children -
what it means to hear the siren..
The greatest gift is when you have children
We say the prayers
The children kneel at bed everyday
At night Vincent used to sing
'Good night mum and dad. Benedizzjoni'(sung)
We used to try to outdo each other.
We used to pretend we were all asleep.
Every month I suffered from diphtheria
They used to get us biscuits
I hid them under the pillow.
We used to make pretend cigarettes
Out of globe artichoke leaves
We would dry them out and roll them up and light them.
'If you help me wipe the dishes, you can have a cigarette'.
I'd give a 'cigarette' to Victor and Charlie
and they pretend to be grown u
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