  
I like a holiday with a theme.
There were a number of reasons why we picked Malta for our holiday destination this year...
It is nearly thirty years since I visited this Island with Hoechst Pharmaceuticals on a very memorable Conference.
It is sixty years since Malta was awarded the George Cross.
And forty years since Malta was granted independence.
Furthermore, I wanted to see how the island had changed in thirty years, and after reading so much about the Second World War since I was a lad, I wished to see the three famous Maltese WW2 aerodromes before they were buried under building plots and property, find out about the wrecks still in the sea, and also to pay a visit of homage to the R.A.F.Memorial in Valletta and also to the new aeromuseum at Ta'Qali.
Late in 2002, after nearly sixty years, it was reported in the press that the remains of RAF Wing Commander Adrian Warburton (DSO + bar, DFC + 2 bars) had been identified in Germany and the story of his involvement with Malta gave me yet another a reason to visit.
Another association was with a young fighter pilot, Alex Mackie, who at the age of 20 had crashed his Hurricane Z3571/J just north of the Dingli Cliffs on January 25th 1942, and I had read that parts of his aircraft were at the Ta'Qali Aeromuseum.
It was reported that at that very museum they are rebuilding a similar Hurricane which, after more than fifty years under water near the Blue Grotto, had been recovered by divers in 1995 !!!
.....And then, of course, there was
George "Screwball" / "Buzz" Buerling of whom I had read, about fifty years ago in Pierre Clostermanns "Flames in the Sky",
and whose signature I had seen on a silver cigarette box owned by my G.P. (family doctor) at about the same time. This box was covered in fighter pilots signatures and I found out that my G.P. had been the M.O. at a famous fighter station during the war.......
And there is a website about Merlins over Malta which relates much about those days
Quite a lot on which to base my research...
And, of course, me and the memsahib both desperately needed a break from work, and a change of scenery........
So we chose MALTA
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