Oral history of the Malta Dockyard: Lawrence Abela

(00:30) Laurie starts by telling the story of his father who with the Admiralty was stationed in the underground area at St Elmo. He worked with the boom-defence, used to close the harbour during the war. When the tugboat “Moor” that was assisting a ship exploded, a stone fell from the roof in the area that he and his colleague standing and killed him, he was only 5 years old.

(05:30) He was a member of the MUSEUM society, and used to attend at St. Michael’s school, and entered the dockyard. He remembers the question that was made to him during the interview “What is the meaning of Verbum Dei Caro Factum Est?” for which he answered correctly. The interviewer also asked him a question about football, for which he answered correctly, even though he did not know too much on football.

(07:30) He passed the dockyard examination and came 85th by order of merit. This was not the best of results because the first choices were for electrical and engine fitters. So, he had to choose the trade of Ship-fitter. He was allocated at the ship-fitters shop training centre, that was still damaged. The ship-fitters apprentices were then moved to a new premises near the red crane.

(12:15) His apprenticeship was 6 years duration. He was moved through various sections related to the trade including the drawing office. 

(14:30) When he first joined the yard, he remembers a war damaged ship alongside to the boathouse, there were other war-damaged ships. However, when he started the apprenticeship, they were not allowed to wander around the dockyard on their own. He showed the tools that they used to do during the apprenticeship and explained the different English-system threads that were used before the introduction of the metric system.

(22:30) During the 6th year, the apprentices were sent with an instructor working onboard ships. His first experience was working on submarines, which were very particular to work on. He describes the various work that they used to do on submarine.

(31:30) During the Admiralty / Bailey transition, he was still ship-fitter. He thinks that Bailey was taking various good machinery to his yards, outside Malta. He remembers the protests in the dockyard, but they were not allowed to go out during the trouble that was happening inside the dockyard.

(34:30) After Bailey, Swan Hunter took over, however eventually the Government took over the shipyard as a parastatal company.

(35:30) He started working on the boring machine when he was still ship-fitter. He remembers various other colleagues that entered the yard in the same year. The teaching in the dockyard school was in English. Practical explanations were in Maltese; however, all the theory was done in English.

(38:30) In 1964, the ship and engine fitters were amalgamated, and he moved to the main machine-shop. This shop had the largest machines available in the industry. He describes in some detail the larger of the machines that were available.   He also mentions the various machining work that was done on the various machines.