Timeline 102762 Main 21 Independence Day by James Philip

Author:James Philip [Philip, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-04-26T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Monday 23rd October 1972

________

Residence of the outgoing Governor of the Dependent Crown Territory of Malta

Verdala Palace, Malta

After breakfast, the outgoing Governor of Malta and his political chief, Under-Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, David Owen strolled in the walled gardens of the old palace. Both men had full diaries that day as metaphorically, the starting pistol for the archipelago’s week-long Independence Day party was finally fired.

“I suspect that you will find your visit to St Catherine’s Hospital a bit of an eye-opener,” Sir Hugh Foot remarked as the two men moved, unhurriedly in the shaded cool of the morning, flanked on all sides by the brilliant colours and the verdant foliage of the gardens. “Lady Marija’s continuing patronage has attracted substantial philanthropic funding from the Betancourt Foundation. Its new delivery ward is as well-equipped as that at St Luke’s at Pieta, albeit on a more modest scale. You’ll probably also encounter Doctor French.”

The younger man’s curiosity was piqued.

“Sir Daniel’s daughter-in-law,” Hugh Foot explained. “Heidi, a charming and extraordinarily accomplished young woman of Japanese-American ancestry…”

“Oh, yes, I remember. Wasn’t she on a destroyer, the Berkeley, that was involved in the battles in the Persian Gulf in 1964? Then she married Guy French, the man everybody says sank that big American aircraft carrier?”

“The Kitty Hawk,” the Governor confirmed.

“Yes, I recollect that when they got married, there was a positive feeding frenzy in the press in England, and I daresay in the US too,” Owen recollected, thinking aloud. “She’s here, on Malta, you say.”

Traditionally, it was the job of imperial legates throughout history to assist visiting men of affairs, and politicians who had failed to prioritise, or like the young man who was his guest at the Verdala Palace, to be fair probably not yet had the time to master every aspect of his ministerial brief, to get up to speed. Sir Hugh carried on patiently helping the erstwhile member of parliament for Devonport South to join up the dots.

He explained that: “Group Captain Guy French, VC, is Station Master at Luqa and its smaller, satellite airfield at Ta’Qali. He is two years into a thirty-month tour of duty on the archipelago. His wife completed her medical training and qualified as a doctor last year at St Luke’s, here in Malta. Since when, she has been Assistant Director of St Catherine’s and is regularly rostered to attend at both RNH Bighi, at Kalkara, and St Luke’s as a junior physician.”

David Owen nodded, remembering now the splash in the press back in 1966 – or was it 1967? – about the dashing hero of the Persian Gulf marrying the former US Navy nurse who had helped save his life on board the USS Berkeley. The couple had two young children, he thought.

“Heidi?” He asked, almost lost in thought. Thinking about his own medical training he could not imagine how a woman with two young children – what was more, a woman transplanted into what must have been an alien, British culture – had managed to achieve her medical qualification in his first profession.

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