Oral history of the Malta Dockyard: Nikol Bugeja

Interviewee Nikol Bugeja (Maltese, born 1940)

Interviewed by Joe Meli (Maltese, born 1953)

Date28 June 2022

Classification(s)

Interviews

Object TypeOral history

LanguageMaltese

Extent1 digital audio recording (WAV)

Registration NumberMMM.AV0113

DescriptionThis recorded interview was made as part of the Malta Dockyard Oral History project by the Digitisation Unit, Heritage Malta, under the direction of Joe Meli.

Nicholas entered the yard in 1955 as an Engine fitter apprentice during the Admiralty period. He passed his last year of apprenticeship in the tool-room and on completion he was assigned to Manoel Island. He eventually moved to the bottle-shop, where he was involved in various development work. He retired in 1993.
Transcript / Summary

(This summary is a work in progress. Timings are approximate.)

(00:30) His teacher from the primary school convinced him to go to the De La Salle for the dockyard examination. His mother was a bit reluctant to send him to the De La Salle, because it was expensive and they were a big family. Eventually he joined the De la Salle college and passed the dockyard examination on his first attempt.

(04:00) The training centre was located underground near the garage of the dockyard locomotive. During his second year of his apprenticeship, he was allocated to the refrigerating shop. Then he went to the machine shop which was located underground, and he visited other shops related to his trade of Engine fitter.

(09:00) On completion of his apprenticeship, he was allocated at the Tool room, working on the milling machine, because he was good when working on precision work. However, there was limited overtime on work at the tool-room, and he would have liked to earn some more money considering that he was the eldest of 10 children. His colleagues who were allocated to the afloat section worked a lot of overtime.

(10:15) After some time, around 1961, he was approached by the manager of the machine shop Mr Farrugia who told him to report at the Manoel Island. Nikol was taken by surprise, as his request was to join the afloat section, however he had to accept his new place of work at the Manoel Island. Eventually he spent 3 years at the Manoel Island.

(13:15) During his time at the Manoel Island he worked on a particular yacht where the Owner was very difficult to please. He once solved for the Owner a pump-problem, however to his disappointment he did not even receive a basic compliment.

(19:00) He spent about 6 years at the Manoel Island, and he was transferred to the afloat section. When the shift was introduced, he was not happy especially during the ‘B’ shift, so he asked for a transfer to a workshop without shift work. He was then offered a job at the Bottle-Shop, which he accepted. Eventually he started working there as a fitter doing practically all type of work.

(24:45) He was involved in some projects on equipment that was used in the bottle-shop. He felt that he was appreciated for the work that he was doing. Since at the bottle-shop, there was no overtime, he decided to do some engineering work at home. So, he bought a garage and a lathe that he refurbished and stared doing spare-parts for washing machines. This compensated for the lack of overtime at his dockyard work place.

(27:30) During the transition from Admiralty to Bailey, he remembers the workers disputes. There were workers that were suspended. At that time, everyone wanted to stay with the Admiralty, however on hindsight Bailey gave better opportunities and overtime to the workers.

(29:30) During the Admiralty time, there was more discipline, every Friday they used to clean the workshop and the machines.

(30:45) He remembers that once there was the manager of Melita Knitwork who had a problem with the compressor in their factory. They had already employed various technicians and engineers who could not solve their problem. He was sent to investigate the problem and after checking the service manual, he suspected where the problem was coming from. On his indication, eventually they realised that the problem was coming from a faulty assembly.

Collection

Malta Dockyard Oral History project

Dimensions34 minutes, 10 secondsProvenanceRecorded by Digitisation Unit, Heritage Malta.

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