This article is attributed to Patrick who, through his tremendous wealth of diary notes, cuttings and photos has made it a rather interesting feature

A newspaper article about the arrival of the American Boy Scouts will serve as an introduction to this page.

Here are the excerpts from a journal of the entire camp which is written by Frank and Illustrated by Patrick's photos, and which documents the day's activities in some detail as they progressed. Read excerpts from it

PHOTO ALBUM

The keepsake was a map outline of Libya covered in a cloth, with the Unit colours attached, and containing all the boy's signed names.

The listing of Scouts who participated in this camp experience from both sides is included here.

I myself have a little contribution to make. I have a keepsake of the occasion . I had exchanged my green scout beret for the American cap with red piping, and sporting the Boy Scouts of America Badge. It belonged to Eric Hoffman, as is inscribed on the inside of the cap.

See Picture on the right >

I also 'lost' my College Scarf for the Boy Scouts of America orange coloured Issue.

Excerpts from Frank's Diary:-

Troop 206 invaded the island fortress of Malta, on Friday 8th April 1971. The Americans waved frantically from the aft deck, and the Maltese answered back using the international handsign ‘Howdy Doody’.  It took a full hour until the “equipment and their Americans came out”. They were met by seven venture scouts. An odd assortment of Vipers, Bats and Falcons slid, fluttered and flew towards us awaiting our next move… destination Verdala.

By 10:00hrs Americans and Maltese are ready for a tour of Verdala Palace. A large group awaits the guide-cum church organist-cum-bell-ringer.

He points to a freeze portraying Verdala’s life. Verdala was the Grandmaster who built this Palace. He is shown as an old man, a middle aged man, a man, a young man, a young boy and as a boy.

Suits of armour of immense size stand in the Hallway, like suits of armour ! The guide takes off one of the protective helmets and passes it round. It’s a pretty heavy thing. And now for the moment everyone’s been waiting for. Suspense, more suspense.. stop pushing!! It’s the dungeons and the torture room. The guide says there were racks. These gave prisoners an extended personality.

At 15:30 hours, commences one of the strangeset and weirdest football matches in the history of soccer. The referee prepares everything for the game whilst the linesman (Patrick) checks everybody for dangerous objects like rings, watches, sheathknives, machine guns etc.

Manuel whistles for kick off, the ball proceeds towards the goal mouth, is it Maltese or American? Well it’s a goal anyway!

A peaceful silence descends upon Verdala punctuated now and again by a reverberating snore from the Venture’s tent… but we think it’s coming from the Beagle’s, poor Guy Picard and John Hylbert.  It rained hard last night. In fact it rained cats and dogs, with an elephant here and there. Everyone was excited as it was Easter Sunday.

Baseball was in progress at the time. Andre came into the baseball boundaries wearing his camouflage, a leafless branch. The ball did not seem to have seen him, and CLONK. He’s got another bump on his head now.

We have visitors all over the place, watch that rope… oh well I tried to warn you.

There are photographers everywhere, there’s Mr Walker, Mr Moran, P. Dimech, Br David, A. Galea, R. Micallef, G.Pcard and Patrick.

ACTIVITY
The routes were given with map references. The long train of Maltese and Americans passed through the gates like a line of jackasses. Although the routes were different, they all led to Ghajn Tuffieha, where the four groups pitched tents for the night. The night was only interrupted by the faint ripples of the waves, and the  inevitable side effect of rice sticking in the throat and working their way up the nostrils.

Diary written by Frank, and typed by Patrick, as was the custom in those days. :)

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