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by Mike Brufal to solve difficult crimes committed on MOD locations such as visiting Royal Naval ships. He served under many Commissioners of Police and has fond memories of Dudley Gowing, Arthur Abraham and Luke Hannon. In 1965 he was voted Mr International Police Association (IPA) and then won the first Mr Gibraltar competition, sponsored by the casino. He had always been a keep fit fanatic and trained almost every day after joining the police force. In his early days as a police officer on the beat he often had to intervene in street fights on and off duty (the latter to aid his uniformed colleagues). He was never a body builder in the accepted sense of using weights, a special diet and much use of the gym. He built up his strength by doing 500 press ups a day. On a few days a year he would increase this to 1000 press ups to raise money for charity. This gave him the fine physique that won the Mr Gibraltar competition. One of the judges, an American swimmer who had swum the English Channel twice, said how impressed he was by the strength of his legs. He asked how this was achieved and was amazed to be told no aids were used, it was all down to a regime of press ups and squats. After winning the Mr Gibraltar competition he met Michael Mifsud who some months later invited him to become the “Gibraltar Group” director on the Rock. This was an honorific position which involved considerable work in arranging the Gibraltar end of the highly successful Gibraltar Group charter flights. His main task was to sell the tickets for the Gibraltar leg and ensure the smooth running of the group’s activities such as organising dances and other social activities. At the time there was a virtual BEA monopoly of the air link with the UK so there was considerable opposition to charter flights. These were always oversubscribed but from time to time there were Gibraltarians who, having paid the £10 deposit, found themselves unable to settle the balance. Some of the stories were so heart rendering that Michael and Louis used to pay the balance themselves so the Gibraltarians were able to take the flight. Eventually the price monopoly was broken, fares came down dramatically, interest in the Gibraltar Group waned and by the early 1970s it was wound up. Louis is filled with praise for the work undertaken by Michael Mifsud in setting up the Gibraltar Group. The charter flights were his
Louis with his wife and son, Father Victor Ghio, at the Hilton Hotel in Rome
One morning he woke up and found an anonymous message had been slipped under his door. It told him to leave Nairobi immediately or he would be killed idea, he financed them with his money, he gave them the use of his Oxford Street office free of charge, took all the commercial risks involved in such a perilous commercial enterprise and ploughed back any profits into the Group. Michael’s prime aim was to enable the not so well off Gibraltarians in London and Gibraltar to fly to and from the Rock during the early years of the Franco blockade. Retiring from the Police Force in 1991 Louis joined the casino where he worked in reception, the gaming room and eventually was appointed a director. From time to time he would engage in some
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GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE • APRIL 2010
private detective work for Mr Heymann, the casino’s chief executive. One such commission was to locate a husband who had left his wife for a young female and had disappeared without making any financial provision for her. The case had been handled without success by a well known English agency. Louis solved the case and the wife was given the correct whereabouts of her husband. The agency was so impressed that he was offered the position of being its man on the Costa del Sol. This he refused as he was working for the casino. Mr Heymann also sent him on secondment to a casino in Nairobi,
A pose by Louis Ghio during the Mr Gibraltar show in 1965 which he won to become the first Mr Gibraltar
Kenya and the brief was to try to sort out why money was being lost. He was there for three months and quickly became unpopular with the general manager and all the staff who were Koreans. He soon discovered they were all part of the Korean mafia hence the reduction in the casino’s profits. One morning he woke up and found an anonymous message had been slipped under his door. It told him to leave Nairobi immediately or he would be killed. The proprietor ordered him to leave on the next plane enabling him to return to Gibraltar intact. After his second retirement, this time from the casino, the late Pepe Holliday invited him to work for Sakata as sales manager for the Iberian Peninsula. This was accepted but after cogitation Louis executed a u-turn and refused the job. Pepe, never a businessman to take “no” for an answer, offered him instead the same position responsible for England working out of an office in Grand Buildings, Trafalgar Square, London. He accepted on condition he would only stay for a couple of months. Louis flirted briefly with politics. On one occasion he decided to press upon the Government the necessity to persuade the Ministry of Defence to release land and buildings which were superfluous to the requirements of the Services. The National Liberation Front was a one man pressure group. He used to sneak out at night and paint the letters NFL on any MOD building he thought should be handed over to Government. Use was made of the classified advertisement columns of the Gibraltar Chronicle by running a campaign for three months. No support was received from the Gibraltar Government; instead he was taken to court for defacing MOD property and fined £30. His campaign was eventually successful and today he is known as the de facto father of Queensway Quay. Today Louis maintains a close interest in everything that goes on in Gibraltar. He thinks that Gibraltar has been blessed with two exceptional Chief Ministers — Joe Bossano and Peter Caruana. In the past he supported an Andorra type solution to the Gibraltar problem. His favourite recollection of Peter Caruana is when Peter trounced Peter Hain during a television debate between the two politicians. His blood still boils whenever he thinks of Jack Straw and Peter Hain — never again will Gibraltar be subjected to such a political campaign devised by Tony Blair and Emyr Jones Parry. n
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