Parts of the British press had interpreted the Prince’s finger pose as a sign that Queen Elizabeth was pregnant with their second child, Princess Anne.

“This is how we will always remember Her Majesty,” Cusens wrote. “Still free and unburdened from her Royal duties, like so; a Malta resident happily living the life, driving around the island, in all her simplicity..before leaving us and going on to assume her long and glorious 70 year reign.”

Following the Queen’s death, there have been some calls for Malta to honour the monarch with a public monument, with a petition to the authorities picking up over 1,000 signatures.

Proponents of the monument point out that the Queen was Malta’s head of state for some 20 years before the island became a republic in 1974 and that Malta was the only country besides the UK where the Queen lived in. 

A statue, they say, would therefore be a celebration of recent Maltese history. 

Moreover, a monument to Queen Victoria already stands in Republic Square while Hastings Garden, where the Queen Elizabeth monument has been proposed, already contains a monument to Lord Hastings. 

However, critics of the idea warn that Malta shouldn’t celebrate a time when it was part of the British Empire, with Xagħra mayor Christian Zammit pointing out that the island was beset by unemployment, emigration, poverty and illiteracy in those days.

Cover photo: Background photo: Hastings Garden in Valletta (Photo: Frank Vincentz), Left inset photo: Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth at Villa Guardamangia (Photo: Frank Attard), Right: Malta George Cross Movement founder Simon Cusens (Photo: TVM)