Watch: Beppe Fenech Adami Goes Into Meticulous Detail Of Infamous Break-In When He Was 11 Years Old
It happened on 15th October 1979 but the memory in PN MP Beppe Fenech Adami’s mind still remains vivid. Harrowing moments of the day his house was broken into and trashed by an angry crowd, back when he was 11 years old and his father Eddie Fenech Adami was Opposition Leader.
His recount of the famous ordeal resurfaced in Ħerġin, a Nationalist Party video that shines a light on individual candidates.
“We were at home with our grandmother, when at around 19:30, whilst I’m in the middle of a guitar lesson, I hear glass shattering,” he began. “I didn’t take much notice, because it was nothing new since we would always play football at home.”
“But then more noises came. And from glass shattering there was slamming, shouting and a cacophony of other noises. The sound of a number of people suddenly bursting into the house.”
“But then there was more glass shattering, and slamming and a lot of other commotion. Then I realised that something was amiss. And that something was that a number of people had broken in, smashing everything in sight.”
Something was indeed amiss, with a young Fenech Adami taking to the top of the staircase, shocked to see that his house had been broken into and occupied by around forty people.
“I can still picture it as if it just happened: the sight of someone pulling a chandelier out of its socket, another dropping a grandfather clock and jumping on it, others pulling the lights off of the walls…”
“I was in the middle of it all. In the room where all this was happening. In the commotion, they probably thought I was one of them!”
“They were breaking the furniture and tossing it onto the street where a crowd of people was cheering the mob on. Every time someone tossed out a piece of furniture, it was to a resounding chorus of applause and laughter.”
Fenech Adami took to searching for his grandmother, who was over 80 years of age at the time, and found her screaming at the receiver of a telephone, calling for the police.
“I took her upstairs immediately. If I hadn’t done that, they would have probably killed her.”
Even his mother became a victim of the mob’s wrath and had unfortunately suffered a beating at their expense. But something that surprised the young PN MP at the time was his mother’s stance after the event had taken place.
A stance that saw her forgive her assailants.
“My mother wasn’t even interested to know who beat her. She forgave them. ‘Ħallihom, ejja ħa nkomplu (forget about it, let’s move on) she said.”
“And with that, come next day, we were at school, like normal.”
The family saw to their escape in an isolated area, within the vicinity, and proceeded to switch on the TV to catch the news, which was currently headlining an alleged break-in of PN partisans at a Labour party ‘każin’ in Birkirkara’ at the very same moment.
What do you make of this?