Zarb, Joseph



Grandfather was also on duty (cooking) for a period at admiralty house here in Malta. One of the persons that I am told (stories coming down in the family) was Grandfather's link with Admiral than Chief of staff Admiral Wandsworth Fischer. From dates etc I am calculating while grandfather was serving on the HMS Centurion between duties at admiralty house. My great grandmother was a nanny for the Admirals children family and my grandmother who also lived at admiralty house. My grandfather met my grandmother at admiralty house (a lot younger than my grandfather) my grandfather according to family story was sent back to sea by the admiral or chief of staff or both I am imaging back to Centurion. The marriage did eventually happen and we are here This was most probably during the white Russian evacuations.

I know there was a time when he ended up at Bighi hospital breaking his finger.

Another episode that comes down with the family stories is what we call the onion episode (not yet sure which ship it was on) This episode happened when the ship Grandfather was serving on was operating around Greece (situations in Turkey, Egypt and the Black Sea). He only purchased onions mainly and vegetables from one of the islands. He cooked everything one can make out of onions and vegetables for the ship's crew. Grandfather was I believe put on report and had to defend his actions of just feeding the crew onions and vegetables. I am not sure if the hearing happened at sea or when all returned to Malta. It turned out that other ships in the patrol or activity had serious stomach trouble except for the ship Grandfather was serving (cooking) on. It turned out that it was rotten meat that was purchased by the other ships that made the other crews ill. I am very interested to find the source of the documentation that might confirm this story.

Artic search for missing expedition- this comes down again as a family story and we are told that when the search parties arrived at he the point were the expedition was lost many years before they found everything was as if time has stopped. All canned food etc was as if left there the day before. I am not sure yet what ship grandfather was on if the story is correct.

By Mario Attard


 * 1) HMS Active Crew List (Photographs)
 * 2) HMS Active Crew List (updated in Real-time)