Notes from a small island

Gozo is the Eden from which its sister Malta was expelled...but it's got more than a few crazy ways - that's part of its charm, says Adrian Mourby writing in the UK's Independent:

Gozo is an odd island. It's idyllic, yes, but just a little bit crazy. The first thing I noticed about it was that there are two opera houses at opposite ends of the main street. And they're big. For an island with a population smaller than Bridlington that is quite something. But it's a clue. Gozitans cannot bear to be outdone, especially by each other. They compete in everything, even 1,500-seat opera houses. The people on neighbouring Malta look upon their sister isle with fondness. "This is how Malta was before independence," they say..

A quarter of the size of its blowsy neighbour, Gozo is crossed by quiet, dusty roads leading to small, low villages dominated by huge Baroque churches where old ladies in black sit in silent, toothless judgement on the occasional coach party. Gozo's rocky inlets are quiet too, havens for swimmers - and smugglers who pass through here on their way between Sicily and North Africa - and its land is rich. Gozo produces much of the food consumed on Malta, and Gozitan farmers have learnt that there is money to be made by turning their outbuildings into luxury holiday accommodation. And yet, underneath the serenity, there blazes this fierce competitive streak..

"You'll find one person opens a shoe shop here," says Ann Monsarrat, widow of Nicholas Monsarrat, the author of The Cruel Sea, "and the next day someone else opens a shoe shop in the same street. It's the same with the churches. In 1836 Rabat Cathedral formed a marching band. So the Basilica of St George in Rabat did the same. The cathedral then built a dance hall. So did the basilica. Then the cathedral turned its dance hall into an opera house, so the basilica built one too. Now we have two opera houses!"..

These rivalries don't impinge directly on those who holiday or come to live here, unless they arrive at the time of the Festa of St George, when the procession is quite likely to be pelted by supporters from the cathedral. The peripatetic Monsarrats arrived in 1968, intending to move on after a few years. But Nicholas stayed until his death in 1979. Barbara Greene, cousin of the writer Graham, bought a farmhouse here after the trip she made with Greene to Liberia (published as Too Late to Turn Back). Anthony Burgess was a frequent visitor from his home on Malta.

But you wouldn't know where Barbara Greene's house was, nor indeed the Monsarrats'. Both are low stone buildings with a single door set into the wall alongside well-worn tracks. From long habit the people of Gozo keep the outsides of their houses simple. In 1551 the Turkish navy arrived here and carried off the island's entire population, all 6,000 of them, into slavery. The islanders have been keeping their heads down ever since...