Paul Capsis

I think her mother died in the city, I think possibly Slima or Valletta or San Julian or somewhere like that.

And my grandmother said they had to walk from Nashar to this village

hospital and on the way her older brother, Tony, kept saying to her, don't you cry.

You're not allowed to cry.

And she was eight.

And she said, I remember that seeing my mother on the table with the baby beside her.

She was very young.

She was 17, I think.

After the war in 1948.

And they'd had by then...

My grandmother had six children.

One died very young in Malta.

And my grandfather came out to Australia the year before.

So he came out in 1947.

Yeah, my mother was five years old when she was with her siblings.

Never.

My grandmother had never been on a boat, even though she was from this island called Malta, surrounded by water, but she never ever went on the boat because she was terrified of boats.

And it's funny because she said the boat stayed calm until they hit Port Said.

They went through the Suez Canal in those days, 1948.

And she said then it was after that point that...