Be at home with the President and help charity

At Home With The President, a book launched at the Palace, Valletta, yesterday, takes an unusual look at the three Presidential palaces of Valletta, San Anton and Verdala.

This it does through personal recollections of the holders of the highest office in the land, or of their families and of the time they lived in them: Anthony Mamo, Anton Buttigieg, Agatha Barbara, Paul Xuereb (Acting), Ċensu Tabone, Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, Guido de Marco and Eddie Fenech Adami.

These recollections of life in the palaces were made in a series of interviews carried out by Marija Schranz and illustrated with photographs from the family albums.

President George Abela wrote the foreword for the book.

The interviews make up the first part of At Home With The President. The second part consists of about 90 original photographs of the three palaces, many of them taken from unusual angles.

This 128-page book, published by Allied Publications with the collaboration of Kasco Ltd, came about after Kasco's Andrè Camilleri, impressed by the richness of the palace and its contents, got the idea for a photographic record of all three Presidential palaces.

This was then compiled by Simon Poulton and Tonio Lombardi.

Heritage Malta gave its support to the project and its consultant, art historian Antonio Espinosa Rodriguez, wrote an introduction and provided captions to the photographs of the three palaces.

Mindful of the sterling work carried out by the Malta Community Chest Fund, Allied Publications, Kasco and Heritage Malta decided to make a concrete gesture in acknowledgment of this and decided to devolve all net proceeds from the sale of the book to the fund. This initiative found the support of President Abela, who chairs the fund.

At Home With The President, on sale at €35 from all bookshops in Malta and Gozo, was printed by Progress Press Co. Ltd, with design and layout by MediaMaker Ltd.

It will also be on sale at Ġonna Mdawla, the event being held at San Anton Gardens on Saturday, the eve of Father's Day, in aid of the Malta Community Chest Fund.