Oral history of the Malta Dockyard: Lawrence Gialanze

(00:30) He entered the shipyard in 1972 as a mechanical fitter apprentice. He spent four years as apprentice, with the first year at the training centre with theory and practical training in the mains trades of the shipyard. The subsequent years were on the job training in the machine shop and on ships. On completion of the apprenticeship, he was allocated to the fitters’ afloat section, which means working on ships. During the apprenticeship he was also attending school classes at the technical institute and the polytechnic.

(04:00) During his working experience he always met with very good chargemen who guided and helped him a lot. He had some sea-going experience and after his return, he was sent with the MMU factory (Milk Marketing) attending the machinery. After one year he returned to the dockyard and was sent leading hand with the chargeman Grech.

(05:45) After some time there was a vacancy for chargeman, and was appointed chargeman of a gang and he found himself in charge of fitters that were all older than him. At first, he was taken aback, however the fitters were very helpful. He then moved to foreman of fitters where he had the full backing of his manager and gave him with a lot of experience.

(07:15) He was involved in various project but he remembers very well the Lampas and Lepeta the had a lot of work and the fitters they were involved to remove the propeller and the rudder, as well as the main turbine. His experience with the chargeman and the fitters was excellent. His policy was to distribute the work fairly amongst all the workers.

(11:00) Even though, a foreman with overtime used to gain more than a manager who was not paid for his overtime, he applied for the post of manager trainee. At the same time there was a vacancy for a Fitters departmental manager, which for him was an attractive post.

He eventually decided to start as a manager trainee for ship manager which would give him the experience outside the role of the department. He started his training period and at one time he was advised by one of the shiprepair managers to make sure that he spends some time at the commercial office as part of his training.

(15:30) When he was completing his training period, he went to the commercial department. At that time there was Mr Degray, Joe Meli and Lawrence Zammit. After a short period, Mr Degray went on sick leave and did not return to the yard. Joe Meli asked him if he could prolong his training with the commercial and stared giving actual work to do. This went on up to Lawrence’s termination of his training period.    

(19:15) At the end of his training he was advised that he was going to stay at the commercial office. He never imagined that the work was so interesting. Before he used to think that office work was boring and definitely not for him, however he realised that working at the commercial was a full-time job. He learned a lot in every sense.

(20:30) After 10 years at the commercial office there was the decision to close the shipyard. Joe Meli left in 2009 and he stayed up to 2010 in the shipyard.

(22:30) After leaving the yard he started working with a private local shipping company.