Of Guns & Roses
is pleased to present
Malta’s military men and
their love for nature
Images
© Steve Borg 2002
may take a
bit longer
to load
|
|
Of Guns & Roses
|
Images
© Steve Borg 2002
|
written for my-malta-dotcom by Steve Borg
|
Governors, however, tended to rule by autocratic measures. Sir Arthur Borton, Governor of
Nevertheless, beneath the stern faces expressed on parade grounds, behind the firing Lee Enfields, the guffawing 12pdr guns, the rattle of carriages and limbers, there was a human heart that nurtured respect for nature. There was time to look down with open eyes at the beauty of the blossoming flowers. After austere Winter comes flowering Spring, after war, peace. This was the time of guns and roses.
Wiltshire-born Field Marshal Lord Methuen, (1845-1932), had fought in Bechuanaland, Egypt, and the Boer War. In January 1915, when appointed Governor of Malta, his name was a “household word throughout the Empire”. During his four-year spell he was known to speed off with his wife, cousin Mary Ethel, on Saturday mornings, to Ir-Ramla tal-Mixquqa (Golden Bay) to plant Norfolk Island pines and other decorative trees. The trees, now matured, lie within the Hal Ferh Holiday complex.
In 1909 he became Governor of Malta, a position he held until 1915. He was responsible for the planning and opening of Rundle Gardens, albeit planted on the designs of the Union Jack, in Racecourse Street, Rabat, Gozo. Today the shade of the gardens is a welcome refuge from the sweltering summer sun, during the hosting of the annual Gozo Agrarian Fair.
Governor Congreve was a great lover of Malta. His favourite spot on the island was a crag side, facing the rocky islet of Filfla, beneath the Hagar Qim Prehistoric temples in Qrendi. He whiled his time there with his wife Lady Cecilia, observing the flowering rock steppe, known as garigue, with its small rock pools that sustain so many native flowers. These include the asphodel, the Star of Bethlehem, the borage, the wild thyme, the sand crocus and the Mediterranean heather. Tens of species have been recorded here.
When Congreve passed away on the 28th of February, 1927, the whole population mourned. Twenty thousand paid him last respect as he lay in state in St. Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in Valletta. Malta had lost not a Governor, but a friend. His request was to be buried at sea between Hagar Qim and Filfla. Lady Cecilia, too overwhelmed with grief to accompany the funeral, was instead driven, with her son Lieutenant-Commander Geoffrey Congreve, to Hagar Qim to witness the burial, conducted from HMS ‘Chrysanthemum’.
Writing in a contemporary newspaper, Lady Congreve recalled the many occasions she had sat on that very spot in company with her life partner, enjoying the natural setting and the sunset. A quatrain from a then-published poem in the Daily Malta Chronicle reads:
And whenever on Mnajdra’s heights
The human heart is blessed no more, for the earth next to Governor Congreve’s epitaph is scorched, with the flowering vegetation weeded out by bird-trappers. The bird-trapper makes sure that his netting does not become entangled with the wild flowers, when trapping songbirds migrating to Europe. Once caught, the songbirds are condemned to a miserable life in captivity in cages smaller than a cereal carton.
The site is within the Hagar Qim and Mnajdra Archaeological Park. In 2000 a visiting Cumbrian historian, an authority on the Great War, asked to be taken to the site. He discovered that the memorial was now flanked by three illegally built bird-hides, a few feet away from its very base. It violated this place of meditation. The area was, and still is, infested with tens of bird hides and the uprooting of indigenous flowers continues.
Visitors to the Congreve Memorial during the migration period are scowled at. This is a land where environmentalists are ridiculed and at times physically manhandled. On Good Friday, 2001, vandals struck at the nearby Mnajdra Prehistoric Temples, a World Heritage Site. A public condemnation followed.
However, who shall spare a thought for Walter Congreve’s memorial? You can... by emailing your thoughts to The Malta Tourism Authority.
The Maltese Government is currently promoting eco-tourism. And rightly so. The country, although overdeveloped by land speculators, still offers potential with beautiful walks through the remaining tracks of winding country lanes, breathtaking cliffs and the verdant and under rated valleys, il-widien, and the plethora of native flowers.
Sir Harry Luke, Lt. Governor (1930-1938), writing in 1956, in his autobiography Cities and Men, states “The difficulty of getting things done under self-government [in Malta] is that the return from the expenditure of public funds on cultural, archaeological and artistic objects seldom takes the form of votes.”
Sir Walter Congreve’s monument may help recall Rupert Brooke’s 1915 romantic and patriotic poem The Soldier:
If I should die, think only this of me:
Ironically Brooke’s corner was to be on the Greek island of Skyros; the cause of death a mosquito bite and not a German bayonet or bullet. Colonialism gave way to democracy in Malta. It was axiomatic that it would be popular, not, however, without a toll. The toll was the environment. One takes pride in bringing to attention matters that demand rectification. Eventually this would help encourage eco-tourism to Malta. So did some military men who perhaps, without knowing, attempted to understand and appreciate her values.
|
Observers commentating on Malta’s British colonial past, leading up to the self-government of 1921, refer to the era as that of a fortress economy, when Britain’s primary exigencies in Malta were purely military. The civilians, the people of Malta, came lower, in the priorities list. The 
Malta in 1878-1884, was known to have charged his horse through the Feast of St. Paul’s religious procession, and the police sergeant who stopped him was demoted. Sir Henry Bouverie [1836-1843] outlawed street musicians from the Maltese capital Valletta, on the pretext that they were literally beggars, not performers. In Britain, the Victorians regarded English folk music with the same contempt. One wonders what would have become of Martin Carthy or Doug MacLean.
Born in Newton Abbot, Devon, Henry MacLeod Leslie Rundle (1856-1934) enlisted with the Royal Artillery. Wounded during the Zulu War, he fought at Tel el Kebir, Egypt, in 1882, on the same battlefield with the Royal Malta Fencible. Later to become known for his exploits, with Lord Kitchener, in Khartoum and Omdurman he was, at 43, appointed Ltnt. General.
Chatham-born Walter Congreve (1862-1927) had served with the Rifle Brigade in India and awarded the Victoria Cross in the South African War. In 1917 he was hit by shrapnel, losing a hand. In 1924 the amputee, was appointed Governor of Malta on Mnarja Day, a public holiday.
