History brings back moments of past communist time

TIRANA, Jan. 5 – The international media had some interesting stories related to Albania during the first days this year. We are speaking mainly of the British, Irish and Maltese media.
The parents of popular British/Irish singer Chris de Burgh trained British spies in Malta during the Cold War, they reported, based on words by her grandchild, Chris de Burgh’s daughter’s Rosanna Davison.
Charles and Maeve Davidson were trained in code making and in turn trained spies ahead of their deployment in Albania as part of ‘Operation Valuable’, one of the earliest Cold War attempts to overthrow the communist regime in Albania.
They moved to Malta in 1951 and settled in Rabat, where their two sons, including Chris, attended a small school and loved swimming.
‘The young men were being trained in Malta to operate behind communist lines in Albania and make life difficult for the communist authorities,’ Maeve Davison told the newspaper.
After a stint marked by a glamorous social life and the occasional bizarre incident, the Davisons mission ultimately ended in tragedy. Devastatingly, the agents they trained met the same fate as the previous recruits: they were discovered by the Albanian authorities and executed.
‘The appalling loss of life couldn’t continue, so the operation was disbanded – though nobody was able to pinpoint how the Albanians were getting their information.’
They only got to known in 1963, when Kim Philby, a veteran member of British Intelligence, confessed to being a double-agent and defected to Russia.
Chris de Burgh became very well known. His daughter Rosanna won the title of Miss World in 2003 and enjoys a successful career as a model.