One does not meet people like Fr Peter Serracino Inglott every day. They come, in fact, as a gift. He had one of the finest brains in the country and was in every way a great Maltese. He was, in a sublime sense, God’s jester and at the same time a great thinker and a master of paradox to which he could magically give a brilliant clarity.
As a bright student in his younger days he excelled in various European universities, from which he made a collection of academic degrees. But being a student and at the same time endeavouring to make a living was not always easy, and to make both ends meet he had to work in restaurants (whose owners I commiserate) and sleep under the bridges of the Seine (though he certainly did not learn his most respectable French from the clochards). But while his academic studies undoubtedly contributed to his profound wisdom, this must also have contributed to his equally profound understanding of life and of his fellow men. He was also and above all a really good priest.
He had an impish sense of humour and its expression was always accompanied by a special twinkle in his eyes. He always admitted that his earliest ambition was to become a circus clown and there are photos of him in a cage at Bouglione’s circus near Paris with a tiger named “Mandy”. No doubt he must have greatly enjoyed creating that mythical figure of De Valette’s jester in his libretto for Charles Camilleri’s opera The Maltese Cross.
Yet this is the same man who brilliantly read philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and was there awarded the Chancellor’s Prize for English prose, the same man who later became an eminent professor, rector and reformer of our University, the same man who was for many years personal advisor to the Prime Minister.
I have known him as a special friend for many years, ever since we were together on the editorial board of the University literary review The Sundial many years ago. His own writing was always exceptionally good. Indeed I feel that deep down in his heart of hearts he always remained an artist in the finest and fullest sense of the word.
Fr Peter was quite a character, incredibly absent-minded but always brilliant. I remember one occasion when he was due to open an art exhibition by our mutual friend the greatly gifted Alfred Chircop in the magnificent cloister of the Dominican Priory in Rabat, but had completely forgotten all about it. After some time, as the assembled audience was beginning to get rather impatient, somebody succeeded in getting in touch with him by phone. Of course there had to be some further waiting but when we finally saw his trademark tuft of red hair emerge through the main portal he delivered, without even stopping to regain his breath, a really brilliant impromptu speech, which eventually could only be stopped by a kind and gentle whisper in his ear. Ideas were to him, as the Italians put it, “come le ciliegie, l’una tira l’altra” (like cherries, picking one brings the other with it).
F Peter certainly left an indelible mark on post-independence Malta, but, like so many of his calibre, remained essentially and genuinely humble. Personally I mourn him as a dear friend, a truly unforgettable one.