The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh have recreated pictures of the late Queen and her husband Prince Philip, which were taken more than 70 years ago in the Maltese villa they lived in when they were the Edinburghs.
Edward and Sophie toured Villa Guardamangia on Wednesday, and heard about restoration work taking place on the former residence of Queen Elizabeth II and Philip when they were a young married couple.
The couple lived there between 1949 and 1951 while the prince was stationed in Malta as a serving Royal Navy officer.
Edward and Sophie met Elizabeth Pule whose mother, Jessie, was a housekeeper when the late Queen and Philip lived in the villa on the outskirts of the capital Valletta.
Edward told her: “I know that my mother spotted your mother in a crowd when she came on a visit.
“She never forgot her.”
The pair were taken on a tour of the house during which they walked through an exhibition of photos of the late Queen and Philip set up in the garden.
Edward and Sophie waved at two people who were stood on the balcony of a different property overlooking the garden.
They had a Union flag and Malta flag draped over their balcony and remained there for the majority of the visit.
The duke and duchess were left alone at the top end of the garden, near a derelict fountain, to have a private moment, chatting among themselves and taking in their surroundings.
Bells sounded midway through the tour, which were rung specially by a local priest in honour of the couple’s visit.
Edward and Sophie finished the tour by posing for a photo on the villa’s roof, and were asked to swap positions to recapture a famous photo of the late Queen and Philip taken on the same roof decades ago.
Giancarlo Azzopardi, assistant curator at Heritage Malta, said there is an “attachment” between the villa and the British royal family.
“Specifically with the older generation that remembers Malta as a British colony and later as a British base, there’s always that attachment,” he said.
“Obviously, there’s a nostalgic element and then you obviously have the celebrity status of the royal family, so there is that link.”
He said it was meaningful to have the duke and duchess visiting the property on Wednesday.
“It always pulls a crowd,” Mr Azzopardi said. “We get people knocking on the door – ideally they don’t do that – unfortunately we can’t let anyone in but we do get a bit of fans.”
He also told of a “misconception” that the late Queen was living in Malta as a “regular sailor’s wife”.
He said: “The princess was living here at a time when there was a question about whether or not independence was going to happen and the princess was at work putting on a public image for Britain, for post-war Britain.
“Despite the idea, the misconception, that she was here as a regular sailor’s wife, she was quite busy. Every single day she was at an event.”
She would spend some of her “little” free time at a local polo club, Mr Azzopardi added.
Heritage Malta has been granted around 10 million euros (£8.4 million) to restore the dilapidated property and plans to refurbish it as a 1950s house by 2030/31.
Mr Azzopardi said the organisation recently went through the Windsor Castle and Mountbatten archives with an idea to display some artefacts once the house is restored.
“We have looked at some of the correspondence the princess (the late Queen) sent back home to her parents,” he said.
“We won’t put everything on public show, obviously, but it did give us a different insight.”
Edward and Sophie waved to a small gathering of people outside Villa Guardamangia as they got into a car to head towards a church service.
They arrived to another small crowd of members of the public, grouped outside the Anglican St Paul’s Pro-Cathedral – an institution of which Philip was patron.
Some local residents stepped out on to their balconies to watch as the duke and duchess greeted church leaders and listened to a band play God Save The King.
After exiting the service, Edward lingered at the church’s entrance to speak with members of the clergy, talking at one point of the warmth in the building.
He joked: “As we were singing ‘let our souls ablaze’ we thought well that’s taking it a bit literally.”
He and Sophie then unveiled a plaque commemorating the restoration of the cathedral’s six bronze bells – originally cast by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry – which was part-crowdfunded by the local population.
The plaque reads: “Giving back to Valletta the harmonic sound of its famous bells.”
The couple then enjoyed a reception outside the building.
The duke and duchess later visited the National Library where they viewed artefacts which documented the shared history between Malta and the UK, including a letter signed by the late Queen inaugurating the island country’s first parliament in 1964.
Pointing to a date on the letter, Sophie did a quick count on her hands before turning to her husband to say: “You were six months old.”
The library is located on a busy street in Valletta, and the royal pair’s presence prompted many members of the public to applaud and some to stand from their restaurant chairs.
