November Nostalgia.

November is the last full month of autumn and a precursor of cold winter
months and the Christmas festivities. Somehow for me, it brings with it,
some very lucid recollections of childhood experiences, many of which I
am sure those of my age would be familiar with. I would like to share
some of them with you.

It is the month when we put particular focus and stress the importance of
remembering our dearly departed family members and friends. At the
time following All Saints day, on the 2 nd of the month we dutifully
participated to three hastily celebrated masses. We must have referred
to this day as the "Day of the Dead". During my stint as an altar boy, a
very long one indeed I remember waking up each morning and with a
sense of duty, to take part in a celebratory mass which was held on each
day during the whole month at 6.30am. In those days the church
ambient would be sombre, shorn of any embellishments and black would
be the liturgical colour adopted throughout. In the middle of the church,
just a few feet away from the altar a cenotaph all covered in black drapes
and lace would be erected. It would be headed by a bronze cross and four
candlesticks. The liturgy for the mass sometimes a concelebrated one
would be that for the repose of all souls. The celebration would end with
the blessing of the cenotaph with holy water and incense. I do not know
why but at the time the cenotaph made me wary.

It also brings me also sad memories of every time as an altar boy I

regularly used to accompany a priest all through the year for that, to the
hospital mortuary, a hall which at the time looked like something from the
Middle Ages. We used to sit facing each other in a black carraige drawn by
two black horses with plumes on their heads. We would be following
another gold leaf covered and adorned carriage carrying the deceased. I
would sit there struggling to balance the weight of an iron cross.
Somehow I do not remember being afraid at all during these functions.

You might ask where he is coming from, but after 50 years I still carry
with me limpid memories of the particular times, we accompanied a dead
baby or a destitute person placed in a plain wood casket. Luckily these
situations do not exist amongst us anymore. Or are they still present
away from our sight under a different guise. Because we regularly read
newspaper reports of families in a destitute and desperate situation
fleeing the ravages of their country and end up drowned, lost forever near
our shores in the Mediterranean Sea.
November brings with it intense memories of departed members of my
family. My mother who died at a very young age, whom I had known as
a very sick woman since she was 31. Medical treatment at those times
was not as advanced as it is today and a truly sick person would have had
to pass through harrowing and testing experiences. Today after having
myself reared a family of four, I wonder how hard it must have been for
her to take care of us five in all, and am also eternally grateful to my
father who must have suffered a lot of stress and toiled pretty hard to
keep up with the demands of his teaching job and home. They were two
persons made of steel like many other Maltese of their age, who had
faced and survived the horrid experiences of war.

The next persons I remember are my grandparents and the way they
marked the Feast of St Martin which incidentally is also celebrated in
November. No it’s not about the roman soldier from Tours who converted
to Christianity in adulthood but it’s about how much we as children
anticipated the bag of nuts, fruits, sweets and sweet buns with a candy
int the middle, which they used to give us annually. It was a very crude
bag, a humble one, hewn out of rags, of which nanna always had a good
supply and recycled year in year out. It was their way at the time of
showering us plenty grandchildren with their boundless love. I have
always wondered what’s behind this tradition and I tend to think that it
might have to do with the fact that in old times around this time people
would be storing food in order to survive the winter
Nannu who was a very good cook would prepare a tart which recipe he
claimed was a closely guarded secret of his, but which we always relished.
I have never met with anyone who makes this tart nowadays and as to
the recipe he took it with him to his grave. If my taste buds have
remained as sharp as then, besides sweet pastry it must have had an
assortment of nuts, dried figs and chocolate as some of its ingredients.
We did not have a car and it never ventured our mind to go to Bahrija for
the annual feast. I do not recall that at the time this was a full blown
celebration and fair as it is today.
I cannot remember the name or person, but it must have been one of our
primary school teachers. There was someone who would with the least
fuss and great dedication go round the clases and organise the
distribution of poppies by children and we would eagerly roam around the
streets with a tray and tin distributing these poppies in turn for a donation
which many times did not exceed a half penny. Poppy day entailed a
collection we were told in aid of servicemen who had faced the ravages of
war. At the time besides residents and visitors there would also be
members of the British Forces and expatriates. At the end of the day we
would have returned with an empty tray and a heavy collection tin.
Remembrance Day was celebrated with a high profile parade near the
War Memorial in Floriana. Members from British Armed Forces regiments
serving in Malta, the Territorials serving and visiting Royal Navy personel
would all be represented and all line up in front of the memorial. It is
from these occasions that I developed a passion for military parades and
military hymns. And exactly at the right time, on the 11 th day, at the
11th hour the last post would be played to a crowd of bowed heads. We
used to look up to, in admiration and in awe, to a group of civilians in
military drill, proudly displaying on their jackets their hard earned war
medals. Non of us knew what the medals represented although everyone
would give his own interpretation of the colours of their ribbons. The last
time I attended this ceremony the number of those still alive has dwindled
to the extent that they can be counted on the fingers of my hand. I am
not sure but it was invariably celebrated on the 11th of the month and it
must have been a holiday then?

The last Sunday of November marks the end of the liturgical year and the
start of a new one. It marks a time of waiting for the feast of the Nativity
on Christmas day. We would be helping the church sacristan in the
embellishments related to church liturgy which is mainly purple. We
enjoyed the time spent filling a large number of tins with sawdust/sand
and soil and sowing grains. Placing them in the dark, under a large
cupboard in the staircase leading to the belfry and watered regularly
these would eventually grow white sprouts which would eventually be
used to embellish the altar at Christmas. Preparations will be in full
swing at the premises of the MUSEUM where preparations for the
procession with baby Jesus would be in earnest. We would spend hours
there assisting the members in the making of paper mache cribs and
chalk pasturi. The work would be allocated in accordance to the aptitudes
and abilities of the volunteers and we would observe in awe the only boy
from all of us who was capable of fine painting the eyes and the mouths.

I have given you some thoughts which come to me and hope that my
memory serves me right. I have other later experiences attached to or
around the month of November some of them very sad indeed. But its
best that these are forgotten since its too early to treat them as just
reminiscences. Well I now await for what’s in store this November.