She loves good food, good company and a good laugh. And the issues she brought up then, are just as relevant today

This interview was first published in 2000

Pamela Hansen and I have been bumping into each other quite a lot lately.
“I didn’t see you at the gym” she remarked as soon as I sat down. “No, I couldn’t make it” I said (not too) regretfully. With summer looming, we have found ourselves co-incidentally signing up for the same classes – from aqua aerobics to Salsa lessons.

But while I always seem to find a million excuses to wriggle out of strenuous exercise, Pamela has applied herself to getting into shape with the same single-minded determination she shows in everything she does.
We were dining at the Winston; as they are no longer serving lunch, we had switched the interview to dinner. Better this way, Pamela assured me “it gives us a chance to get all dressed up!”. She is one of those women who enjoys female company as much as male, although this was not always the case. “When I was younger I used to think ‘what a waste, when I could be out on a date!’” She bursts into peals of laughter at the memory, her eyes twinkling mischievously.

Pamela Hansen is a great believer in women getting together, not just to socialise, but more importantly, to network. The two, she firmly believes, are intertwined. “Well, just look at this table of men behind us” she pointed out. “That’s not a social evening alone. You can tell that they’re networking as well. How often do you see women’s groups doing that?”
So what is it about the Winston which made it her automatic first choice?
“Well, the atmosphere for a start. It’s different. I like the way Carol Calleja has done it up – it’s a very original idea.”

I could not agree more. Sitting at the rooftop garden restaurant, surrounded by grass, flowers and facades of typical Maltese houses, complete with numbers on the doors and the obligatory picture of Our Lady, you have to keep reminding yourself that you are actually in the heart of traffic-congested, over-developed Sliema, instead of a sleepy, quiet village.
“Then, obviously, there is the food, which is always good. Especially since Carol started bringing this fish over – he actually goes himself to choose it.”

As Winston’s owner Carol Calleja was abroad on business, our host for the evening was Simon Stillon. He recommended a few dishes which we decided to try. Before our first course arrived, however, we were presented with a delicious gazpacho – the traditional Spanish vegetable soup which is served cold.
When offered wine, Pamela declined, admitting that she does not really drink. “Alcohol, cigarettes and the sun – they all age you” she warned me, sounding like a slogan for the Health Promotion Department. She is right, of course, and with her clear, smooth skin, amazingly wrinkle-free, she could be a walking advertisement for healthy living.

I asked her about that bane in (most) women’s lives: her relationship with food. “I love my food” (Ah, someone after my own heart). She lowered her voice “I find food positively orgasmic”. Pamela clearly enjoys saying the most outrageous things, displaying a delightfully wicked sense of humour.
She does not cook much. Not, as I thought, because she lives on her own, but because she has quite a good social life. “When I do cook, I enjoy it, it’s therapeutic and I make it a point to eat well.”

We discussed our mutual efforts to lose weight, commiserating with one another as only women can. Whereas in my case, it has taken me three years to get off my backside and do something about it, Pamela’s current regime is an annual ritual. “When I start trying to buy bathing costumes and see lots of bumps that I’d forgotten about in winter, then I start watching what I eat until I get back to my normal size.”
As if on cue, the waitress offers us bread. We burst out laughing.

It has been eight years since Pamela came back to Malta from England where she had been living since she was 18. In one of those cruel twists of fate which life sometimes throws at us, she tells me that she had been wanting to come back to spend time with her father for a long time. When her marriage broke up and she did come back, he passed away. “There comes a time when you start missing your family. My idea was to come to Malta and spend time with him, but it didn’t work out that way. As they say, life’s a b**ch and it couldn’t be more so in this case.”

She speaks softly and with wistful regret, her eyes welling up with tears. It was time to change the subject. Describing herself as a ‘butterfly’ Pamela told me that in England she flitted from one profession to another, from teaching to management, basically trying out anything which interested her, but always working with people. “I was very lucky because in London at that time there was so much you could do and it was all for free! Art college, training courses, management courses. They were very big on equal opportunities and at one point I was sent on a Women in Management course. At the end, we had to tell teach other what we thought we should be doing and everyone said I should be in the media. At that time I laughed!”

Looking back on the break-up of her marriage, Pamela is one of those rare people who speaks without rancour about her ex-husband. “I had a good marriage while it lasted. I was very lucky, I had an excellent relationship for almost 30 years.” She married young, more to please her mother than anything else. “I knew my parents would freak out if we lived together, so we got married.” She tells me that as a couple, they always gave each other lots of space, to the point of going to functions in separate cars so that if someone got bored, they could leave without spoiling the other’s enjoyment.

With a laugh, she remembers that people used to think she was single because she did a lot of things on her own. To this day, she cannot imagine losing that kind of independence, and would never dream of being ‘joined at the hip’ with someone. It is hard to believe that the youthful-looking Pamela is the mother of a 27-year-old son, who still lives in London. She feels quite strongly about ageism in Maltese society; people, she says, often pigeon-hole you because of your age, expecting you to behave in a certain way because you are X number of years old.

“I refuse to be slotted” Pamela tells me adamantly. “I am not a matron and I never will be!” This is said with a fierce defiance. “Some people would like to see me in that role, I think” she adds as a wry afterthought. She tells me an anecdote about meeting a male acquaintance who is much older than her. They got talking about a certain job and when she expressed interest he told her ‘it’s a shame, your age is against you.’ She hoots with laughter: “I thought ‘coming from this guy, that’s really rich!’ But that is the mentality.” Unfortunately, age, like looks, is another weapon in the arsenal which is used against women by those who wish to tear them down. I tentatively brought up the subject of her current status. Is she seeing anyone at the moment? “I keep my personal life very, very private” she told me, gently but firmly shutting the door on all further discussion on that particular point.

Skirting around the issue, I tried another tack. Did she find that women on their own in Malta are made to feel uncomfortable if they aren’t one half of a couple? No, she replied with a firm shake of the head, “because you have so many friends here that the problem doesn’t even arise.” Perfectly happy with her own company, she relishes time on her own. “I can watch telly for a change. I enjoy watching it, even the rubbish! There’s a time when it has its place. I also paint; I’m very good at keeping myself occupied.”

Our first course had arrived – a mound of fresh mussels for me, sautéed with leeks, saffron, champagne and fish liqueur, and for Pamela, an abundant portion of spaghetti with vongole, fresh tomatoes, shallots and fish liqueur. Thoughts of the gym seemed like a vague and distant memory. Although Pamela is Assistant Editor with The Sunday Times, her ‘butterfly’ days are not over. She combines journalism with a bit of television and radio. “I like to have change; I have to be doing more than one thing. That’s the beauty of working in the media” she admits. “I think print and broadcasting media complement each other beautifully. They are both stimulating and ideas seem to bounce off from one to the other” she adds.

Our conversation turns to success and why it can bring out the worst in people. “Everyone wants success, which is OK. Some people can handle other people’s success, and others can’t. That’s the problem.” When I ask her whether she is difficult to get along with at work, Pamela replies with refreshing candour: “I’m not easy. Obviously, you’d have to ask the people who work with me. But I think my bad temper passes quickly.” She believes her reputation of being ‘difficult’ can be attributed to the immense culture shock which anyone who returns to Malta inevitably experiences.

“Lots of things that I took for granted in London just don’t happen here.” Could she be more specific? “People’s attitude to work. I feel there is a lot of immaturity still in the workplace.” She groped for an example. “I used to find it very irritating if I’m talking on the phone and someone would come and start shouting. They don’t notice they’re doing it – they start talking over your head. In my job in London, that just wouldn’t happen. I’m not very tolerant, I get impatient. Perhaps a calmer person with a different temperament would have said, ‘Ah well, I’m here now.’ I don’t think I did. I think I was more…” Snappish? I volunteered the word with a laugh. She immediately joined in the laughter, recognising my reference to the sitcom Ally McBeal in which the secretary Elaine is constantly reprimanding Ally for being ‘snappish’.

However, Pamela, is quick to say in her own defence, that she has mellowed a bit since then. There is this myth (kept alive by men) that women do not work well together. Put more than two women in an office, they say, and it will soon turn into a bitchy, spitting cat fight. In Pamela’s opinion, it all comes down to personalities, and not gender. “There are some women I get along with very well. I do make a conscious effort if a new woman comes into the office to get to know her much more than if there is a new man. And if I hear her making the right noises, in the sense of not letting the men get away with things, I get very excited.”

Being a straight-talking sort of gal, Pamela has had her share of moments when she has crossed swords, both verbally and in writing, with men. One of her most memorable moments was during an episode of Pjazza 3, when she had words with the Attorney General…not exactly the most liberated of men. “That was very naughty of Lou Bondì because I had told him that I wanted to be in the studio, rather than on a link. Then I thought ‘I have a choice here. I can either walk out or stay here and say my piece’ and so I stayed.’ Taking objection to my phrase that she ‘blew her top’, Pamela was quick to correct me: “I was assertive. There again, that is another comment I get a lot. Kemm inkwetawk! (How they got to you!). Skuzi, jien inkwetajt lilhom (Actually, I’m the one that got to them!). That is a gender thing. They wouldn’t tell Lou kemm inkwetawk. They say that to a woman. They still can’t accept to see a woman in that role.” I knew what she meant. Many times I myself have fumed at the way men and women are perceived: a man is assertive, but a woman is hysterical, or a b**ch.

“So, there you are” she quipped with good-natured humour, “I’m a hysterical b**ch!”

Pamela has done her stint on a number of committees and boards, but has been known to resign when the men start using what she calls ‘little boy’ tactics of undermining and being condescending. “I don’t have time for that. Either respect me for what I am, otherwise I’m not interested.”
Like most people in the media, Pamela is quite used to being approached by complete strangers who tell her that they do or do not agree with her. Many times, they are surprised by how petite she is, somehow expecting her to be a ‘big woman’. But, she points out, when people have been downright nasty to her, they have done it anonymously. She was rather reluctant to give more details, preferring to treat it as history, adding that she does not dwell on such things. “You can’t go through life worrying. There will always be people who will try to trip you up. Not just in journalism, in any profession. But I don’t bear grudges, I never have.”

Our plates were whisked away by the efficient staff, and were soon replaced by the delectable fish we had ordered: silver bream al cartoccio, served with roast potatoes and fresh vegetables.

Some people have a vague idea or two when they are young about ‘what they want to be’. But not Pamela. Comparing herself to her father, she has always lived for the day, and marriage, children and choice of career were never things she particularly thought about; they ‘just happened.’

Would she describe herself as ambitious? “I suppose I must be because I wouldn’t be doing all the things I do. I’m pretty driven sometimes but ambition has never been the be all and end all in my life. I get motivated very much by what I’m doing. It’s like when I started writing. I had been writing for years, but it had never struck me that I should make it a career. I’ve never had this Great Plan of what I wanted to do.”

She did know one thing, however: there was no way she was going to be Just A Housewife. Comparing it to ‘slavery’ Pamela can vividly recall how determined she was not to end up like all the women she saw around her, “working their guts out and not getting paid for it.” Even now, she claims, too many women spend all their time working without getting a penny for it. What is worse, they are completely dependent on their husbands. “Of course, eventually I was a housewife for a while, but I don’t think I was very good at it.” Although she did not see any other alternative at the time, she instinctively felt that there must be something else.

Once upon a time, I told her, there was this paper called The People, with a notorious page called Village Gossip. While this tabloid loved to have a go at anyone and everyone, one particular scathing attack was directed at Pamela and her supposedly appalling dress sense. “What was so curious about that was that it came out just before I started my TV programme Narawaha Din. Which makes you think. They said I wear apple green socks, which is absolute nonsense. And they described me as a cross between a bag lady and Tina Turner.”

She gives an expressive shrug: “I know who wrote it, but it is their problem not mine.”