DAVID BENTATA

  Chapter 35 – 198 RANDOLPH AVENUE   The early 1970s saw me back in London. It was a great time to be there.   London seemed to be the centre of everything that was happening with the youth, at least in Europe. It had started with the Swinging Sixties and continued to lead the way in pop music, art, and definitely fashion. Carnaby Street and Kings Road were the two most avant-garde areas at the time. I was sharing a flat with "Mannix" and "Sonny", two other Gibraltarians, younger than I, but just as swept up in the atmosphere of that time. Mannix and Sonny were their nicknames, and prudence requires me to leave their real names out. Incidentally, the nickname Mannix came from a TV detective series at the time and Sonny was the other half of Cher. All three of us worked in the King's Road. Sonny worked for Ossie Clark, a big fashion name at the time. Sonny was the brainy one between us and he worked his way up, up, up very successfully in that company. Mann...

  Chapter 34 – ANGELA – A MEMORY REVIVED     Sometime in the 1980s I was in London on a business trip. I arrived into Waterloo station, coming off my train, when I saw Angela apparently waiting for hers. I knew her from my old days in London. She was one of the Yanito ex-pats that worked there then, and she even married Max who was, like me, another Yanito in the fashion trade. She was in her late 20s or perhaps very early 30s. Petite, ash blonde hair, pale complexion and signature bold red lipstick.... how could I miss her? "Hey Angela, nice to see you .... " "Oh, Hi David ..." There was something wrong. She was avoiding looking me in the eyes and her discomfort was something she could not hide. This was strange because I had a very good relationship especially with her husband Max. We had shared digs when I was in London in the late 60s and early 70s. "What time's your train?" "Not for another hour....." "Angela, coffee?...

  Chapter 33 – GOD & THE FALKLANDS I have been meaning to mention this, not just here in my chapters, but it is something I have needed to say now for a long, long time. This is a very personal issue inside me and it creates conflicts and could create peace if I could only square the circle within me. In 1982, together with two very good friends, David Hassan as Treasurer and Moe Belilo as Secretary, we organised the Gibraltar Maccabi Football Team. The aim was to send a team of futsal to the European Maccabi Games. In those days it was called five-a-side football. In our small community we could not find enough good football players to field an 11-a-side team plus substitutes etc. So starting in 1980, we managed to put together a five-a-side football team and trained very hard to get it up to the standard required to be able to represent our home  town. I remember we had an allocations problem since the powers that be then would deny us the use of the Victoria Stadi...