Oral history of the Malta Dockyard: Manuel Farrugia

(00:30) He started working at the dockyard as a labour. He started working at the boiler shop which at that time was underground, as a labourer with the inspectors and foremen. He does not remember the dockyard after the war, but he was there when the trouble during the 1958, even though at the boiler shop, there they were not aware what was happening, until he saw people coming out from the Senglea gate.

(05:15) He remembers when he got married, the inspectors were invited to the wedding.

(07:00) He was then offered to be promoted skilled labour to do blasting work for metalizing. It was a difficult and dangerous work. He was then moved to the store.

(08:45) He describes the way they used to work in the stores, such as noting issuing of tools and other material. He was stationed in different stores all over the shipyard and even at the Manoel Island.

(11:45) He remembers that once they made an audit of the material stored at the factory, where they used to take samples of all the material, send them to the laboratory where the material was type was classified and then they created a colour code to identify the different material.

(16:45) As store houseman, he used to keep lists of the stock available, and when at a given minimum quantity, they used to pass the information for re-ordering. He always made sure to be as organised as much as possible, as this reduced his work.

(19:00) He remembers, when the main store went on fire during the break. It was a tragedy for him. He also recalls that this happened just after the Um El Faroud tragedy.