Malta is one of those timeless places, or seemed to be when I first arrived there in September 1971. We've probably all seen those old war movies set in the Mediterranean like The Malta Story or Hell Boats and marvelled at the little island's resilience. To have withstood such continuous bombardment by the Luftwaffe during 1942 without surrender was amazing indeed and the award of the George Cross was little compensation for what the people of that island went through, but I digress. The images you'll have seen in those old movies were captured again by my eyes as we steamed in to Valletta's Grand Harbour in the morning sunshine; the only things missing were the bomb craters, the Stuka dive bombers and the JU88's. Malta was like the land time forgot.

We'd dressed ship in the same manner as when entering Gibraltar and a fine sight we must have looked in our brilliant white sailor suits standing smartly to attention as Bulwark made her way past Fort Saint Angelo on the one side and Customs House on the other.

First impressions of the island were of a barren, sand coloured, rocky place sitting in the middle of deep blue waters. Such buildings as could be seen during our approach were of low level, rather sad looking affairs. The relative magnificence of Fort Saint Angelo guarding the left bank of the entrance to Grand Harbour was therefore in considerable contrast.

The city of Valletta rose high on the right on top of a cliff and less so on the left: Grand Harbour appeared to be an elongated basin cut into the very city itself.

Grand Harbour is a large deep water anchorage, but unlike Gibraltar, Bulwark was forced to remain in the middle of the waterway. Once inside the harbour proper and close to our berth, tugs turned Bulwark through 180 degrees and we tied up to buoys secured to the seabed especially for that purpose.

In the Royal Navy's glory days, Grand Harbour would have been home to a great many ships of the Pusser's Grey Funnel line. Even in the early 1970s it was common for the RN to arrive in number, but on this occasion Bulwark was in company with just a single frigate.

Getting ashore from our berth in the middle of the harbour happened in one of two ways; the ship ran her own liberty boats, which were free but infrequent, and the local boatmen ran their Dghaisa (pronounced Dicer) and would take you ashore for a small fee. A trip in a dghaisa also came in two varieties, those whose owners had modernised and fitted outboard motors and so were reasonably quick, or the traditionalists who stood and rowed the little craft in a similar manner to the way Venetians row gondolas and took an age.

So a bunch of us piled into a couple of the dghaisa and headed ashore as soon as we were able. Just off the dockside were a few small bars; among these were the Dreadnought and the Resolution, both named after famous RN battleships. We started off in the Dreadnought for a bottle of Hopleaf and a rum shot. The walls of this little bar were covered in black and white photographs of naval shipping at anchor in Grand Harbour and I studied these as the beer and rum slipped down.

We didn't stay long because the place to go for your run ashore in Valletta back then was Strait Street, better know as The Gut. To get from the harbour side to Valletta proper we took the lift: a rickety old thing that literally hoisted you up the side of the cliff on which the city is built. The old blue box with the wire mesh openings creaked and bumped as it rose vertically up the sandstone. The view out over the harbour was really quite stunning and the shilling fee was well worth it.

We walked past the Phoenicia Hotel, the grandest place on the island, through the gardens and thence into the city. The locals were promenading along Republic Street, which we crossed before turning down into Strait Street: it was almost 8:00pm and the city was coming to life.

Strait Street runs from the top end of Valletta all the way down to Floriana at the far end of Grand Harbour so covers a considerable distance. It is only wide enough for foot traffic and once past the 'commercial' end in the heart of Valletta, the Gut became wall to wall bars interspersed with brothels where the 'professional women' could be found. Most of the bars were only room size, but there were hundreds of them.

Bar girls would do their best to entice you in as you walked down the hill, shouting the odds with their neighbours and promising untold delights for those wise enough to venture inside their establishment. For the price of a glass of very cheap wine, they would grace your table and offer a little female company for a while before going back to the street.

Some of the girls wore the official silver coloured, round and numbered badge indicating they were certified prostitutes. These painted ladies weren't particularly well painted, dressed unflatteringly and were often rather drab. They had few qualms about taking Happy Jack into the back room however, no matter what state of inebriation he may be in. I've seen men incapable of standing being half carried through the curtain, where the old iron bedstead would be made to creak loudly to convince his mates he was enjoying a good time before being carried back out and dumped in the bosom of his pals again. Everybody has to live.

I was taken to Dirty Dick's Bar where we drank more beer and then ordered one of Dirty Dick's Rainbow cocktails a piece. I had no idea what was going into the glass, but the seven different shades of liquor did indeed make a rainbow effect as they layered one above the other. It almost seemed a shame to drink such a work of art, but one taste assured me it was too good to waste.

We staggered from Dick's to the Silver Dollar, where the best jukebox in the gut was to be found: we knew it was the best because one of the bar girls told us. Actually the ancient Rockola box was stuffed with 1950s and 60s rock 'n' roll, which suited me down to the ground.

By late evening Malta seemed to me like a great place to visit if all you wanted was somewhere to get wasted and possibly dip your wick into one of the local girls. The booze was cheap, the weather was warm, the people were friendly; what more could you ask for?

Getting back to the ship was an easy stagger as it was mostly downhill. The only dangerous bit was negotiating the Custom House steps, which seemed almost endless. A trip at the top would mean tumbling down a couple of hundred stone steps taking you down an overall height of around 180 feet and that would obviously hurt: Sailor Beware!