Sunny Borg, entrepreneur, chairman and founder of Bortex Ltd, died on December 31, 2015, aged 89.

Sunny Borg, a self-made pioneer in the textile sector, set up Bortex, the manufacturer of clothes for men, in 1964. Over the years Bortex evolved and exported its clothes to a number of countries all over the world, including North Africa and the Far East.  Under Mr Borg’s stewardship, Bortex invested in technology and then diversified its manufacturing base by venturing abroad in order to remain competitive.

Mr Borg also expanded his business into tourism and acquired interests in various hotels.  He held a number of chairmanships, including those of Middle Sea Insurance, the Malta Development Corporation and the National Tourism Organisation, and often gave various prime ministers advice, where he was renowned for speaking his mind. He was made a Member of the National Order of Merit in 1996.

 

Emmanuel Delicata, founder of the Delicata Winery, died on December 24, 2015, aged 98.

Emmanuel Delicata, a leading figure in the Maltese wine sector, took over the running of Delicata Winery at the young age of 19 following the sudden death of his father, Eduardo Delicata, in 1936. The company at the time employed 10 people and the operation consisted of making the wine and selling it directly from wooden barrels. After the Second World War Mr Delicata took the wine making business to a new level by introducing a more commercial approach, including the bottling of the wine. In the mid-1950s Mr Delicata presided over the launch of Lachryma Vitis, Malta’s oldest wine brand.  By the mid-1960s the wine company moved to its present site in Marsa where it invested in a new purpose built modern winery.  Mr Delicata was also an early advocate of Malta’s Girgentina and Ġellewża grape varieties. He retired in the early 1970s and was replaced by his son George Delicata.

Fr VicGeorge Vassallo, former chaplain of the Armed Forces of Malta, died suddenly on January 19, aged 52.

Fr VicGeorge Vassallo, AFM chaplin, hit the headlines in 2004 after going public about shortcomings, injustices, irregularities and dangers he said existed in the AFM. He was subsequently replaced as chaplain and appointed parish priest of Marsaxlokk. At the time of his death Fr Vassallo was head of IT services at the Curia.

 

 

 

Wilfrid Asciak, former managing director of Progress Press Limited and former Malta billiards and snooker champion, died on January 22, aged 85.

Wilfrid Asciak spent 31 years as managing director of Progress Press Limited, publishers of the Times of Malta and The Sunday Times of Malta, and retired in 2003 after a career spanning over 54 years that included stints in the editorial, sports and advertising departments. He was Malta’s national billiard champion for 16 years, runner-up in the World Amateur Billiard Championship in 1958 and Sportsman of the Year in 1966 and 1971.

When on October 15, 1979 Labour thugs ransacked and burnt the offices of the Times of Malta Mr Asciak was forced by the attackers to take them to the printing press, which they wanted to destroy.  However, Mr Asciak led them to the old machines, and thus saved the new press.

 

Roger de Giorgio, leading architect, died on February 5, aged 93.

Roger de Giorgio was responsible for the restoration of a number of historic buildings in Valletta including St John’s Cavalier and parts of St John’s Cathedral, St Dominic’s Priority, St Francis Church and the Archbishop’s Palace. Born and educated in Milan, he graduated in architecture from the University of Malta and had a successful career as a senior partner with Mortimer and de Giorgio and later with Malta Consult.

In 1985 he published ‘A City by an Order’ about the construction of Valletta by the Knights of the Order of St John. He had also served as president of the Chamber of Architects and Civil Engineers, chairman of the board of governors of Mcast and a member of the University Council. He built the seminary at Tal-Virtu as well as 11 churches, including the Ibragg parish church where his funeral mass was held.  Mr de Giorgio was a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the Royal Historical Society.

 

Joseph Spiteri, former Nationalist Cabinet minister, died on February 6, aged 95.

Joseph Spiteri was the last surviving member of Prime Minister George Borg Olivier’s Cabinet. He was a Nationalist MP from 1955 to 1971, Minister of Public Works from 1962 to 1966 and Minister of Industry, Commerce, agriculture and Fisheries from 1966 to 1971. In 1996 he was made a Companion of the National Order of Merit.

 

 

 

 

Admiral Sir William O’Brien, died on February 19, aged 99.

Admiral Sir William O’Brien, KCB, DSC, whose mother, Ines Parnis, was Maltese, was described by Britain’s The Daily Telegraph “one of the most charismatic and best-loved admirals of his age”. The son of a British Army major, O’Brien was brought up by his mother, the daughter of a Maltese judge, Alfred Parnis, after she was widowed in 1918.

O’Brien had a long and distinguished career in the Royal Navy. In 1941 he served on the destroyer HMS Offa on escort duty with convoys to Russia and was awarded the DSC for gallantry. O’Brien spent much of 1943 in command of the destroyer HMS Cottesmore in the North Sea and English Channel and in December 1944 was sent to the East Indies in connection with the Malayan campaign.

O’Brien continued to rise up the ladder of the Royal Navy: he was second-in-command of the cruiser HMS Ceylon in 1953, appointed chief staff officer to the Flag Officer, Flotillas, in the Mediterranean during the 1956 Suez crisis, and Captain of the destroyer HMS Cheviot in the Far East in 1958-60. He was later appointed deputy director of joint planning from 1960 to 1961 and he was commander of the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes from 1961 to 1963.

He was promoted to rear-admiral in 1964 and was later Commander-in-Chief of the Western Fleet based at Northwood, Middlesex. He retired from the Royal Navy in September 1971.

 

Archbishop Paul Giglio, a long-serving Vatican diplomat, died on March 7 aged 89.

Archbishop Paul Giglio had a long and distinguished career as a Vatican diplomat serving in Nicaragua (1958-59), Argentina (1960-62), Iran (1963-65), South Vietnam (1966-68), Yugoslavia (1969-70), USA (1971-72), Brazil (1973-75), France (1976-77) and Taiwan (1978-86). He was appointed Titular Archbishop of Tindari, Sicily, Apostolic Nuncio to Nicaragua (1986) and Apostolic Nuncio to Egypt (1995). He retired from the Apostolic Service in 2002.  He was consecrated bishop at St John’s co-cathedral, Valletta in 1986.

 

Archbishop Emeritus Ġużeppi Mercieca, died on March 21, aged 87.

Mgr Ġużeppi Mercieca was Archbishop of Malta from 1976 to 2006 and is remembered as a calm, humble bridge-builder who believed in quiet diplomacy. He had the difficult task of dealing with the Dom Mintoff and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici Labour governments from 1976 to 1987 where Church-State relations were at rock bottom in view of the Church schools dispute, an erosion of civil liberties and the State presiding over a climate of political violence.

Mgr Mercieca was often compared, unfavourably, to his predecessor, Archbishop Michael Gonzi, whose confrontational attitude towards the Labour Party was very different to his style of engagement. He treaded carefully during the Church schools dispute of the 1980s and kept his calm when he was surrounded by angry mobs twice, in Vittoriosa and Paola, when a bomb was placed outside his residence in Mdina and when the Curia was ransacked by Socialist thugs in 1984.

Mgr Mercieca did not want the country to return to the divisive 1960s when the Church and Labour Party were sworn enemies, and believed his subtle engagement with the Labour government was in the Church’s interest. “His prudence was accompanied by firmness, but his prudence ensured that the situation did not blow up,” Fr Joe Borg, a media expert, had said. It also ensured that an agreement on the Church schools was reached with the government.

On November 11, 2003, Mgr Mercieca offered his resignation to Pope John Paul II, on reaching 75. He retired three years later.

 

Doris Fenech, Cancer support group activist, died on March 30.

Doris Fenech, a breast care nurse, co-founded the metastatic breast cancer branch of the cancer support group Europa Donna Malta. Herself a sufferer, Ms Fenech was an active member of the support group for over 18 years, first as a committee member and then as vice-president, and was also the national representative for Malta of Europa Donna, the European Breast Cancer Coalition. She was very dedicated to improving services for patients in Malta and Gozo and even when she became ill she did her very best to help others.

 

 

 

Prof. Joe Ganado, brilliant legal mind and former chairman of the Strickland Foundation, died on May 2, aged 90.

Joseph Ganado, a Professor of Civil Law at the University of Malta, was considered to be a brilliant legal mind who handled a multitude of cases in constitutional, civil, commercial and maritime law. Prof. Ganado published papers in the law journal of the Law Students’ Society, of which he was a founder member and president for several terms, as well as academic papers on particular legal issues. He also liked to write biographies and had a very deep knowledge of important Maltese jurists and legislators. He served for a while as Dean of the University’s Faculty of Laws, which bestowed its first Academic Excellence Award upon Prof. Ganado for his outstanding work in the Courts of Malta and at the University.

Prof. Ganado was appointed a member of the council of the Strickland Foundation in 1979. He became the Foundation’s chairman in 2010 upon the death of Guido de Marco and stepped down in 2013. The Strickland Foundation was established for specific public benefit purposes including the promotion of democratic principles, human rights and journalism.

 

Prof. Salvinu Busuttil, former ambassador to France and head of the Foundation of International Studies, died on May 13, aged 80.

Salvino Busuttil was the director-general of the Foundation of International Studies for many years, as well as an advisor to the Foreign Ministry. He served as director of the Malta Development Corporation from 1968 and 1972, Professor and Head of the University Department of Economics between 1964 and 1975, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts between 1966 and 1972. Prof. Busuttil held various positions at Unesco and was also a UN advisor on socio-economic development to the Prime Minister of Bahamas from 1975 to 1977.

A committed Francophile, Prof. Busuttil served as Malta’s Ambassador to France from 1998 to 2005 where he strengthened bilateral relations between the two countries, especially in the cultural sector. He was elected to the French Academy of Agriculture in January 2002 through a decree by French President Jacques Chirac and was also awarded the title of Commandeur de la Legion d’Honneur by the Embassy of France in Malta. In 1996 he was appointed an officer of the National Order of Merit.

 

Major Stanley Clews, former sports editor of The Sunday Times of Malta, died on May 9, aged 93.

Major Stanley Clews served in the Royal Engineers and the Eighth Army in the Middle East during the Second World War. He left the British Army in 1948 and joined The Sunday Times of Malta as sports editor until 1960. He then worked at the Malta Drydocks in various executive roles until 1984. After his retirement he was appointed chairman of the Industrial Tribunal and served for a year as chairman of the Institute of Journalists (Malta Branch). He was best known, however, as the editor of the popular publication The Malta Year Book, a position he assumed in 1990 and held on to for many years. In 1989 he was appointed vive-president of the George Cross Island Association and was awarded an honorary MBE by Queen Elizabeth for his work in organising her visit to Malta in 1992.

 

Jacqueline Azzopardi, head of the Criminology Department at the University of Malta, died on November 4, aged 47.

Jacqueline Azzopardi worked hard to raise the profile of the Criminology Department at the University of Malta and was very dedicated to her students. She organised a number of international seminars, widened the choice of academic subjects and developed a number of protocols and joint international programmes.

Dr Azzopardi was also known for her support of the rights of LGBTIQ persons as well as for gender equality. She was an active member on the LGBTIQ Consultative Council within the Ministry for Civil Liberties. Dr Azzopardi had also served on the Dingli local council for a number of years.

 

Shawn Arrigo, underwater videographer whose name was synonymous with the sea, died on December 12, aged 49.

Shawn Arrigo, a videographer, photographer, diver and underwater enthusiast spent most of his life capturing the underwater beauty of the Mediterranean.

His most recent documentary was a co-production about the relatively unknown underwater habitat surrounding the protected island of Filfla. The documentary took viewers closer than they have ever been to the mysterious island and was significant in light of the fact that Malta’s rich marine environment attracts around 110,000 scuba diving tourists each year.

He worked closely with his brother Kurt Arrigo and the two are credited with the discovery of Ġebel ġol-Baħar, a possible megalithic temple located underwater off the coast of St Julian’s.

 

Judge Oliver Gulia, died on December 17, aged 92.

Oliver Gulia was made a judge in 1974 and served on the Constitutional Court between 1978 and 1983. Considered to be very much part of the judiciary’s old school he led a very private lifestyle which he considered necessary in order to carry out his duties effectively.

Judge Gulia’s publications included The Public Servant in Maltese Law, Criminal Appeals and Mill-Ġnejna Maltija – an anthology of Maltese verse.

Prior to his appointment to the Bench, Judge Gulia served as senior crown counsel between 1966 and 1971, before becoming deputy attorney general. He served as chairman of the Land Arbitration Board from 1976 to 1978 and was an Electoral Commissioner from 1955 to 1957.

Lino Arrigo Azzopardi, press photographer, died on December 27 aged 77

Lino Arrigo Azzopardi shot some of Malta's most memorable historic moments, from Malta's Independence in 1964 to its accession to the European Union 40 years later. 

Following a 25-year career with the Department of Information, he went on to serve as the official photographer to presidents Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, Guido de Marco and Eddie Fenech Adami before spending time working as a stringer for the Associated Press and European Pressphoto Agency. 

He was seriously injured in a 2001 accident in Bulgaria when a truck crashed into President de Marco's motorcade. Doctors gave him a 25 per cent chance of survival, but he managed to pull through. 

His colleagues remember him most for his sense of humour, something he maintained until his last days.

Note: This article first appeared in the Sunday Times of Malta dated 25 December 2016 and has been modified to include Lino Arrigo Azzopardi, who passed away in the days following publication.