Reading the welcoming speech at St Aloysius College Prize Day aged nine remains one of my fondest childhood memories. It was, you might say, my first venture into the limelight. Sir Anthony, accompanied by Lady Mamo, was awarding the prizes that year and, of course, the passing of Sir Anthony, aged 99, last week, triggered off the memory.

Already then, because of my somewhat anachronistic background, I knew all about KCMGs and CMGs, which we used to call "kindly call me gods" or "call me gods" for fun.

I had, by then, been enlightened as to the true meaning of modern knighthood and never again would I embarrass my family by refusing to shake hands with Lady Dorman at the Toy Tea (anyone remember them?) because I expected her to look like a fairy princess with a tiara!

Lady Dorman in a twinset (remember them) and tweeds just did not fit the image. She was, I might add, vastly amused.

I imagine that colonial Malta was in many ways a bit of a fairytale for those who, like me, were too young to understand the political and nationalistic struggles going on at the time.

Even after a year of being in the rough and tumble of college life I was still relatively unscathed by it all and considered myself always to be primus inter pares, first among equals. I had an inbuilt untouchability that must have kept others at bay and I am sure that I must have been a right royal and insufferable little prig.

Independence was then already two years old, however, the Dormans were still here and Sir Anthony was not yet Malta's first Maltese Governor General.

That happened in 1971 when our world turned upside down and inside out after Dom Mintoff was brought to power in a landslide victory and proceeded to sweep Malta clean so vigorously and indiscriminately that the casualties were huge.

Had the man been a trifle more tactful and less spiteful, his many reforms and ideas would, I am sure, have gone down a treat.

Back to Sir Anthony who became Malta's first President when the Republic was proclaimed in 1973 at a time that was hallmarked by uncertainty and unrest.

Sir Anthony and Lady Mamo projected an image of stability and respectability in an otherwise bleak pseudo-proletarian world wherein the Prime Minister refused to wear a jacket and tie and wore great silver buckles on cowboy belts fashioned in the manner of Malta's newly-minted emblem.

I say emblem and not coat of arms simply because that now mercifully discarded roundel could not remotely be called heraldic.

Maybe Mr Mintoff was too avant garde however, at the time, he was, rather like me aged nine, acting like a right royal insufferable little prig too with far-reaching results that we are paying for even today.

Had Mr Mintoff not existed, however, it would have been necessary to invent him; but that is another story.

Since 1976, Sir Anthony has lived in quiet retirement to become the world's oldest living former Head of State. His passing symbolises the fading away of an age that for many young people is a boring old bit of history.

Time waits for no man. The young people of today will, if they are lucky, reach the half century mark and, like me, begin to reminisce.

Just imagine what one's memories are like when one is practically twice that age.

Sir Anthony was a living embodiment of our modern history and I hope someone has collected his memoirs for posterity. Listening to the stories being recounted by older people has always fascinated me.

One of my great aunts, Vera Harding, was one such raconteuse. Born in 1900 her eyewitness and personal accounts of the Eucharistic Congress and Sette Giugno, not to mention the state visits of the then Prince of Wales and the Japanese Crown Prince, Edward VIII and Emperor Hirohito respectively, were like a walking and talking history book as she recalled anecdote after anecdote while stirring her famous pork stew in her kitchen with one eye on the Daily Telegraph on the table.

Many, many years have passed since Sir Anthony was Malta's Head of State, a post he held with great dignity and ability in difficult and sometimes tumultuous times. He was the first and last ex-Chief Justice to be nominated to the incumbency (I cannot resist using the latest buzzwords) for since then the Presidency has gone to a politician who was either on the way out or been kicked upstairs; all of these nonetheless have performed their ceremonial duties with honour.

It is however high time that this narrow selection be expanded to include prominent Maltese citizens who, irrespective of party politics, have done us proud. Sir Anthony is a case in point.

The Presidency as it stands is nothing very much more than a figurehead, the most onerous job for whom is heading the Community Chest Fund charity.

This is interspersed with presiding when other Heads of State visit us and cutting ribbons and planting trees.

Had the President been able to wield real political power the reasoning would be different, however, because of the largely ceremonial nature of the office, the post can really go to anybody who will do us proud irrespective of political colour.

I am sure that that would be a vastly preferable option to many of us.

So, as another of Malta's prominent sons becomes a cipher in a history book and our story as a nation courses on inexorably to its destiny, we pay tribute to the man who poured oil over troubled waters and lent an unmistakable gravitas to the otherwise wild west type of government we had way back in the 1970s.

May he rest in peace.

kzt@onvol.net