I remember “London Airport” (Heathrow) in the 1950s because my dad worked for BOAC, and occasionally we went there. It wasn’t huge. It seemed like what we used to call ‘an airfield’, something still relatable to the ancient land-use, to be measured in fields. In fact the buildings and fencing are all still there, a remnant of planning and development from the mid-20th century, or even pre-war. The floor of the public reception area had some sort of wind-rose design in it, I think.
Look at the airports now! Several of them round London, occupying vast spaces which were (within my memory) good farmland, covered now with rolling acres of scabby concrete, and the buildings go on and on and on. These buildings give me a kind of dread, as they are all about crowd control - with thick plateglass walls which allow you to see filades of other people trooping along in another direction from your own, or herded into patient groups. There are signs and ramps and escalators and lifts and corridors which stretch into the vanishing point. To me, it all seems to be a preliminary for some kind of fascist operation. They could horde hundreds of thousands of us into these spaces, if they needed to imprison us. It’s ready waiting, the airport landscape, with fencing, drains, pens, spaces, even catering… and all conveniently placed sufficiently remotely from the centre of the city. Now this idea is in my head, I can't expunge it. Sorry.
The process of flying has become one of enumeration - we are no longer people, individuals, but digits in the computer age. We are scanned, photographed, tagged, bundled up and dispatched along various routeways. Yesterday, despite the anxieties and doubts generated by coronavirus (Should we be flying? Will I catch this plague on my journey? Will we get back?) it all went smoothly enough. We parked, we survived the astonishingly bitter cold wet wind attacking the carpark while we waited for the shuttle-bus to the terminus, we checked into our hotel, we woke up in time, we went through the screening and checked in, and we found an indifferent breakfast … all without a hitch. Strangely, we had to do that thing of taking out all liquids and putting them into tiny plastic bags beside our luggage to go through the scanning machines… When we flew to Ireland just a month ago, that requirement was not in place. The make-up and toothpaste could stay inside the luggage. Maybe the North and South Terminals at Gatwick have different procedures. Such ponderings are little diversions from the ghastliness of it all.
The flight was perfect. The announcements on board have changed slightly - you are not to move seats without permission as it might disturb the balance of the aircraft. We flew at 39,000 feet - I think that’s over 7 miles up! Makes having a poo on the flight somehow even more miraculous. Seven miles! It was almost as cold on arrival at Valletta as it had been leaving Gatwick… cloudy, stormy. We queued to be allowed in (still in the Schengen EU line), we picked up the key for the hire car. That was a shortish stroll from the terminus, but not in the allocated bay. It turned out to be herded in by a great swathe of other hire cars, about 4 rows back.
The hard-working car-hire lad had to move all these out of the way before we could get ours out, and he was preoccupied because somehow he had lost his mobile phone (work link), and someone had driven off with it…. He was agitated. But we agreed all the (many) bumps and dints in the edges of our Ford Ka, and set off.
Here is Malta - the road from the airport past Valletta is like like some sort of urban nightmare - a winding tract of car showrooms, builders' yards, tumble-down masonry, greasy engineering plants, anonymous commercial buildings, minute survivors of ancient farmsteads with a few rows of potatoes or gnarled vines, beautiful chunky square-edged balustraded balconies, lovely bits of 18th and even 19th century buildings, views down past the sprawling city to the sea, and eventually some sense of the countryside. We diverted into Rabat (whose meaning, in Arabic, is ‘suburb’), one of the many many hilltop settlements with spectacular churchy buildings at the very top, and fortifications guarding higgledy-piggledy lanes and alleys…. There we had lunch in a courtyard (Piazza della Chiesa Parrocchial) beside the museum celebrating the short stay on the island of St Paul, on his way to Rome and martyrdom. Our lunch was absolutely perfect - a salad of pears and Italian cheese, and then seafood. I managed a quick sketch....
Then on we went, towards the north, with some agriculture now more prevalent, across a lovely flat little valley full of horticultural farms, and up into Mellihia and our apartment.
This is 4 years old, with a lift to our 3rd floor eyrie. We have 2, or even 3, flat roof terraces, with distant sea views, and a quiet stony urban outlook. There is nothing green in sight anywhere (apart from really distant hilltops far away).
We walked down into the old town…. narrow pavements, tat shops, nail bars, cafes, two grocery shops packed with everything including lots of fresh broad beans and other summery vegetables, and brands of (ie) jam which are no longer found in Britain (Foster Clark). We were amused by the local car numberplates.
We went into the two churches which are (according to a guide book) built ‘atop one another’ (eh?). One is very old, built into a cave in the cliff and all squint… with an icon or mural of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus. This is reputed to have been painted by St Luke himself in AD60. I seriously doubt it. The church is smallish, packed with votive junk and decorations and is really wonderful. A nun is on watch.
Outside, and on top of the cliff is an airy spacious baroque ‘parish church’ (cathedral sized), with a lovely white stone interior and red stone outside. The statuary adorning the inside of the dome is risible.
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