During my stays in Malta I naturally encountered not only Maltese people, but also other permanent or temporary residents of the island.
Some of them were diplomats. I remember an ambassador of the United States, who invited me several times to his residence somewhere in the neighbourhood of Sadi, if I remember correctly.
A few times I was invited to join the ‘numbers two’ of the embassies of Britain, France, Italy and Australia to discuss the present political situation in Malta.
I might have met there Mr. Ross Brown, the deputy of the Australian High Commission. His wife Pat was Dutch and we became close friends. I even stayed with them at their residence some days, I think in 1983, when Ross was chargé d’affaires when the High Commissioner had left and his successor had not yet arrived.
Ross showed me a video which he had found in the safe of the High Commission. It contained a documentary made by an Australian television station and made just after Malta became independent in 1964. It showed, amongst other things, the rivalry between the two band clubs of Hal-Luqa, the so-called politico-religious conflict of the sixties and statements of Prime Minister Giorgio Borg Olivier, Opposition Leader Dom Mintoff, Archbishop Michael Gonzi and his then-presumed successor Emmanuel Gerada. And, a special treat for me, is a British consultant who tells us that tiny Malta should not build too many hotels ‘or else it might topple into the sea’.
The documentary contained extremely sensitive material (Gonzi and Mintoff were very outspoken and there images of disruptions to labour meetings caused by church bells) and therefore the then Australian High Commissioner organized a preview for Archbishop Gonzi. The latter must not have liked what he saw and somehow or other, the documentary was not broadcast on Maltese TV and ended up in the safe of the High Commission.
I was very enthusiastic about what I saw as it was an illustration of a large part of my book Prelates and politicians in Malta. Unfortunately Mr. Brown was not in the position to copy the video for me and it went back into the safe.
Some time after my departure the new High Commissioner arrived. He had a look at the documentary and decided to show it to the then Prime Minister of Malta, Dr. Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici. The Prime Minister asked if he could borrow the video and immediately made some copies of it.
During my next trip to Malta I was asked to pay a courtesy call to the Prime Minister, who was very nice to me. He presented me with a stamp album with all the stamps issued since Malta became a republic. He had written a flattering dedication: ‘To Dr. Adrianus Koster, who knows us Maltese than we know ourselves’.
But he had another gift for me. A VHS-rape. He told me that he had had to exert a great deal of diplomatic pressure to get his hands on this tape and suggested I should show this to my students in Amsterdam.
The tape happened to be a copy of the documentary ‘Two trumpets for St. Andrews’. Ever since I showed it to the students in my course political anthropology until I retired from the Free University in 2007.
Those interested may watch the video on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFdyXxNVJ5s Don’t let the many commercials that unfortunately interrupt the broadcast put you off.
A few years later Ross and Pat Brown were recalled to Australia. I lost sight of them after that, alas.
(Originally posted on Facebook, 22nd August 2026)