FEATURE Bosom Buddies’ founder Sonia proved how ‘age is mind over matter, and if you don’t mind your age, then it doesn’t matter!’ Former archivist Tommy Finlayson acknowledged that, at over eighty years young, people like him are in the departure lounge hoping the flight will be delayed. His years as an archivist and historian are his legacy to Gibraltar. Former Bayside teacher Monica Ritchie, who prides herself on having taught well over half of Gibraltar’s male population, retraced her acting career from North London to Gibraltar, and her recent grand return to the stage with Rock Theatre. She shared some intimate details of her biography, such as her wedding photograph, and the fact that her parents were wartime Berlin escapees, and her maternal grandmother a Holocaust victim - fitting just one week after the occurrence was solemnly marked at Commonwealth Park monument. Personal as well the contribution by Radio Gibraltar and Newswatch presenter Lindsay Weston who described how she dragged her feet in her husband’s relocation from Yorkshire to Gibraltar for what was supposed to be just two years but turned into a decade, the practical challenges of house hunting and being a full-time mum to young children and the consequent inception of the Trinity Toddlers playgroup. Staying on the theme of pedagogy Nicole Stein-Jezulin illustrated with a plethora of photos the Montessori method applied in her private nursery. Dyslexia Support Group co-founder Stuart Byrne asked whether dyslexia is a disability or just a disadvantage in a system heavily based on reading, writing and spelling: in pre-alphabetisation cultures where children are taught by practice or by oral repetition, potential reading difficulties are irrelevant to prompt learning, because
children can process teaching visually or by imitation – so what are we doing wrong and can we design an educational system inclusive to the estimated 10% dyslexic population? Parenthood tragedy was the topic of Stanley Flower’s talk about his teenage son’s traffic accident and Tamsin Suarez’s dealing with childhood cancer. The first described the ordeal weathered by his family thirty years ago when his son Mark was hospitalised with life-threatening injuries in Malaga after his friend Richard’s red compact crashed near Sotogrande. The anxious, distressed and desperate parabola from the dead-of-the-night police phone call to the relief of watching Mark and Richard meet again in Cadiz hospital, where the latter was admitted and eventually awoke from a coma, touched the innermost fear that parents dread to face, in a detailed description of the instant the Stanleys first laid eyes on him in that hospital bed, covered in bruises and cuts, a tractioned leg, one eye bulging out with its pupil dilated. “His head sparkled, as it was still covered in glass fragments,” Mr Flower said. Mother-of-eight Tamsin likened a parent’s strength to an egg shell’s which can unexpectedly withstand enormous pressure, when she told how her toddler was sent to Birmingham for further tests after being misdiagnosed here, and suddenly her world caved in when he was prescribed immediate leukaemia treatment: besides the anguish for her son’s survival, there were practical implications like being temporarily homeless, financial constraints, job security worries, when she and her husband were stranded in the UK for months with just a suitcase, a double pram and their infant daughter in tow, in a pre-credit card era, when Calpe House turned down their accommodation request because it had a no children policy. What does a parent do in that situation? Just cracks and falls apart every night and picks the pieces up again in the morning when it’s time to turn up to the hospital with a brave face for the sick child’s sake.
man contact despite the ‘segregation’ of communities, in contrast to today’s international ambience, luxury developments and hi-tech business, and he called for keeping positive in braving yet another storm. Deputy Chief Minister Dr Joseph Garcia was introduced as the unfaltering advocate of an issue very closed to Gibraltarian hearts, namely ‘Brrrand 5!’ Jokes aside, he gave the audience a summary of his Brexit-related diplomacy, peppered with palatable anecdotes to defuse the palpable uncertainty. And as the curtain fell on GIBTalks, in the spirit of gender equality with an even number of male and female speakers for the first time in five years, Julian revealed how the sixth edition is already pencilled in for 2020, asking the public to volunteer their participation or to nominate someone who hasn’t been yet featured.
Last but not least, GIBTalks briefly touched upon politics with GSD prodigal son Keith Azopardi QC analysing Gibraltar’s social changes in the last fifty years (since frontier closure). He talked of a different society, with no luxury development, little technology and more hu-
GIBRALTARINSIGHT.COM
MARCH 2019
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