Dominic Mintoff (1916-2012) was Prime Minister of Malta when I conducted my research there. As he was one of my main research objectives I thought it proper to ask him for an interview. However, his personal secretary Mr. Joe Camilleri informed me that Mr. Mintoff was a very busy man and that we would prefer to meet me when I would know more about the subject. When he considered me to be ‘ready’ het would send for me
Mr Camilleri referred me to Mr. Salvu Sant who would supply me with all the information I needed about the Malta Labout Party. Mr Sant was indeed very generous to me and provided me with various political pamphlets Minoff wrote and various magazines of which he was the editor. I met quite a few people who knew Mintoff well, what helped me to portray him adequately.
In 1984 I published my book ‘Prelates and Politicians in Malta’. When I happened to be in London I left a copy for Mr. Mintoff at the Malta High Commission where he was due to arrive a few days later. Het had just stepped down as Prime Minister.
Some time later I happened to be in Malta, where I was welcomed at Castile by the new Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsuf Bonnici. Het presented me with a stamp album in which he had written ‘to Adrianus Koster, who knows us better that we know ourselves’. He told me that Dom Mintoff would like to meet mee informally and invited me for a swim at Delimara.
The next day I was collected from my hotel by a nice lady. She told me she was a businesswoman and a staunch Minroffian (Many years later, when I ran into her by accident she told me how disappointed she was in Mintoff and the Labour Party, but that’s another story.
The lady took me by car to Delimara, where Mr. Mintoff was already in the sea, together with another man, I supposed him to be a bodyguard. I was asked to join them in the water, but there was no place to change clothes. So I wriggled myself into my swim trunks behind a bath towel.
Mintoff and the other man were throwing a ball at each other in the water and after I arrived I played along with them. (There must be a photo of this rather peculiar event, but I have no idea where it is.)
After some time we climbed on the rocks and dried ourselves. I asked Mintoff if I could interview hem, but he indicated this was not the suitable time. He invited me to have lunch with him. The lady was supposed to drive me to location where this would take place and so she did.
It was a long drive by Maltese standards to a renovated farmhouse near San Pawl tat-Targa. There were quite a few people present, although Mintoff had not yet arrived. Somebody briefed me about the prevailing etiquette. I was supposed not to address ‘il perit’ before he spoke to me himself. Smoking was strictly forbidden in his presence.
After Mintoff arrived we sat at the long table. He sat at the head with a pretty lady on each side. I was situated just around the corner on the left of one of the ladies, within speaking distance of Mintoff. I had another goodlooking woman on my right side.
The soup arrived, it was ‘soppa tal-armli’ (widows’ soup). Mintoff stood up from rhe table and handed out the soup himself to those present. When he filled my plate he asked me what I thought of his action. I replied: ‘It reminds me of the last supper’.
I dis not like the soup, nor the rest of the meal, but did my best not to show it and ate reasonable portions.
During dessert or coffee Mintoff suddenly addressed me: “The Prime Minister has lent me your book’. I told him that I left a copy for him at the Malta High Commission. He raised his voice: “Where is that book. I want to have that book. Alex (The Foreign Minister; AK) must have pinched it’.
After a while I asked him if he would consider me to become his biographer. ‘Biography. When they start that you are almost dead. I don’t want to die….’ After a while he added: ‘If my biography will be written it might as well be by you. You are quite balanced. But don’t expect to get a penny out of it!’
A few moments later he left and the lady drove me back to my hotel.
It would be my first and last meeting with Dom Mintoff.
**
As, due to other commitments, I was not able to execute the Mintoff project I had to shelve it for the moment. However, many years later there might have been another opportunity. During a meeting with the then Prime Minister Alfred Sant the latter suggested I should have another go. He arranged that Helen Dalli, an MP from Zabbar, should collect me the next day and take me to Mintoff’s residence in Tarxien.
The next day, however, I received a phone call that Mr. Mintoff did not feel well and that we had to postpone the meeting. It was not possible to set a new date as I was due to leave the island in a few days.
In 2001 I was due for an academic sabbatical at the Free University of Amsterdam, where I worked. I considered going to Malta again to give the Mintoff project a serious try. When I submitted my plans to the new Dean of the Faculty the latter asked me ‘Dom who? I have never hear of this man’. I told him Mintoff was quite famous in Britain, but he would not hear of it.
He told me the faculty needed some positive publicity on the national level. The biography of a former Prime Minister of a ministate, in those days not even a member of the European Union, would attract hardly any attention from journalists. So I had to change my plans. Instead of Mintoff I chose Andreas (Dries) van Agt, an unconventional Durch politician, who was Prime Minister of The Netherlands in the years 1977-1982. When my book on him De eenzame fietser was published in 2008 it certainly attracted the attention of the Dutch national press. Some time later I retired and no longer had the opportunity to start another extensive academic study. So the Mintoff project ultimatedly turned out to be nothing more than a beautiful dream.
Many years larer, December 2024
(originally posted on Facebook, 12th July 2026)