Helen Aquilina (née Saliba), born on 19th June 1929, is an amateur actress who was active primarily in the immediate post-World War II period. She started performing on public stages with the Malta Union of Teachers’ acting troupe in 1949 - beginning her acting career in a play authored by Ġorġ Pisani, which Francis Ebejer also took part in. After a short time, she joined Watty Cachia’s troupe (Kumpanija tal-Proza ‘Cachia’) which, at the time, included a number of prominent performers including (besides Watty and Nestor Cachia themselves): Mary C. Camilleri, Twanny Scalpello, Madeleine Attard Montalto, Mary Grech, Victor Grech and Nosi Ghirlando. Helen played important parts in all of the company’s productions. She also performed in Italian with Company Bisazza, set up by Bice Bisazza and her husband.

As was often the case at the time, Helen retired from the stage in 1956, upon getting married. After this, through Ines Soler’s initiative, she got involved in Rediffusion for some time - performing in drama and translating plays into Maltese.

This collection of photographs, from Helen Aquilina’s personal archive, is an invaluable source of documentation on post-World War II theatre-making.