MICHAEL BARTOLO’s memoir is the story of a journey “from Mosta… to the centre of the world”. Lara Zammit speaks with the diplomat about his memorable life.

Michael Bartolo’s memoir details the comings and goings of a life from humble beginnings during the war years to eventual successes in New York and Geneva in different capacities, namely as a UN Secretariat staff member from 1968 to 1994 and as a representative of Malta as an ambassador in Geneva from 1994 onwards.

Indeed, Bartolo introduces his memoir with the synopsis: “a journey from Mosta […] to the centre of the world”.

“One very memorable experience was representing the UN in Albania at a very early stage of its development,” began Bartolo, speaking to Times of Malta.

“During my first two visits, one could see no cars. My car, supplied by the government, was normally the only vehicle on the road. The main street of the capital Tirana was only a pedestrian street since there was no traffic at all.”

Michael Bartolo

By the same token, Bartolo also recalls with fondness working at close quarters with Secretary General U Thant when he formed part of the staff council. “As a young member of the secretariat, I was impressed by his humility, which brought out the best in all the people who came in touch with him,” he said.

While serving as Malta’s ambassador in Geneva, Bartolo recounts how his most memorable experience there was the organisation of Malta Week, when Geneva was turned into a festival with Maltese culture on show, including an art exhibition and performances by Maltese artists and performers.

The memoir, titled A Life to Remember, proceeds chronologically from Bartolo’s early years in Mosta through the twists of fate that led him, among other things, to a two-year contract with the United Nations in New York, which eventually deve­loped into a permanent position spanning 26 years.

However, gathering information about his early life during World War II proved somewhat challenging.

“Information on my early years was very hard to discover and it was very frustrating that no one from my family would open up on the hard times my family, like other families in Malta, went through during the war,” said Bartolo.

“This was no subject to be tackled by my family and I could not bring myself to attempt to fill the many gaps in my and my family’s life during the war years until a neighbour and family friend agreed to reminisce whenever we met, filling up some of the gaps during the war and soon after.

‘A Life to Remember’ by Michael Bartolo.

“Before this neighbour, no-one dared explain the scars on my face that came as a result of an explosion at the underground shelter, or my time in the medical facility treating me soon after the war,” said Bartolo.

His recollections only became clearer upon his family’s eventual return to Mosta from Pwales, where they had gone to take shelter from the incessant bombing.

I always learned that hard work and honesty in the end would pay off- Michael Bartolo

“I was finally able to connect the dots. Before that time, the period I spent in the underground shelter and sometime later consisted of disconnected events that I was unable to put together until much later,” he explains.

It was due to his lacunae in memory and narrative that Bartolo felt he was unable to share his life. “I could never share my life before it became somewhat clearer to me,” said Bartolo.

Speaking about the most life-changing twists of fate that took place along the span of his life, Bartolo said the first of these was his survival from the Mosta shelter where he and his mother were injured by glass shards from a paraffin lamp which had been blasted by the powerful explosion caused by the bombs that besieged the town.

Among the other twists of fate colouring Bartolo’s life is the story of how he came to attend the Montessori school in Valletta after a gentleman his family assisted during World War II offered to pay the tuition fee for him and his siblings.

“Fate never stopped smiling on me after surviving the Mosta shelter. The opportunity to attend Montessori was certainly unexpected and not a natural development to my life at that time.

“Apart from that, fate also changed a situation that could have gotten me fired from my first job at the Royal Air Force to a situation where I had the realisation that I needed to change my life concretely to complete my education and restart my future plans,” notes Bartolo.

Thinking more about these twists of fate, Bartolo maintained that a definite life-changing twist was that rather than taking a plane from New York to Malta after finishing his master’s degree to consider rejoining the Education Department in Malta, Bartolo decided to visit a friend at the UN instead, which ended up launching his UN career. “This was certainly not in my plans,” he quipped.

Bartolo does not shy away from mentioning instances of adversity he experienced at different points in his life, including from his peers at the Montessori school and later during his first years at the UN, where he experienced jealousy and criticism.

Bartolo seen boarding his first flight to New York on my way to the University of New Hampshire in the US.

“My adversity at the Montessori was luckily short-lived thanks to a good friend who stuck by me. The jealousy and criticism experienced in the early years at the UN and later in life was part of the life I chose and, although discouraging, could be dealt with successfully thanks to the support of some genuine friends and supervisors.

“I realised very early on that life is not always a bowl of cherries. I developed a practical philosophy of life. I was convinced early on that remaining calm and accepting that adversities are part of the life I had chosen could be turned to one’s advantage.

“I always learned that hard work and honesty, in the end, would pay off. I do not think that I would have changed anything in the end,” he concluded.

A Life to Remember is available at all leading bookshops.