When my father, Tom Forrestall was a young man, he saw a well known film called, "The Malta Story" (1953) produced by J.R. Rankin and directed by Brian Desmond Hurst. The time frame for this film was the period of WW II, during the siege of Malta. There was much footage of Malta, and this tiny island captured his artistic imagination. For over 50 years, the dream of going there to capture the light, and the magical colors of this landscape stayed with him.
Throughout the years, Malta had come up many times. Back in Nova Scotia, a dear professor friend of dad's had the role of traveling the work to investigate the improper use of the title Knights of Malta. There had been some attempts at plans to visit Malta together, but that never materialized.
Fast forward 50+ years. I was invited to a breakfast event sponsored by the Malta Tourism Authority of NY and the Corinthia Palace Hotel and Spa in Attard on Malta. They were introducing a program for hotel guests to visit Behind the Scenes of Malta, where hotel guests would visit extraordinary private homes.
"In 1942 Britain was clinging to the island of Malta since it was critical to keeping Allied supply lines open. The Axis also wanted it for their own supply lines. Plenty of realistic reenactments and archival combat footage as the British are beseiged and try to fight off the Luftwaffe. Against this background, a RAF reconnaissance photographer's romance with a local girl is endangered as he tries to plot enemy movements."
Tom and Monica in the Alfred Courtyard of the Grand Masters Palace in Valetta, on Thursday, April 14th, 2016.
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