My Life and Times

by Alfred Fiorini Lowell

published by Kite

My Life and Times is the autobiography and memoir of a man who had a long career in Malta’s Civil Service, for many years in senior positions which he occupied ably and with integrity.

Indeed, when the book was launched last December, a strong light was shone on these two qualities by President Emeritus Ugo Mifsud Bonnici who had high words of praise for Fiorini Lowell – a man he got to know well professionally as his permanent secretary during the period when Mifsud Bonnici was Minister of Education.

Fiorini Lowell, for reasons he does not make clear, did not go in for a university education, but chose to enter the civil service after a short period as an emergency teacher.

It was a decision that worked out well for him as, despite not being a graduate, he became a highly respected civil servant, reaching in late years the position of cabinet secretary to then prime minister Eddie Fenech Adami, and Chairman of the Public Service Commission, a post he retained for some years after his retirement from the civil service.

He was born and has lived most of his life in Tas-Sliema, a town of which he is clearly fond, and the promenade of which, save for the unattractive post-war buildings lining it, he considers to be one of the finest anywhere.

He has the right to pass judgement as, mostly with his wife Antoinette but also with friends and other relatives, he has enjoyed much travelling, mainly in Europe but also in other continents. 

He has done much motoring abroad, and narrates how his great self-confidence as a driver led him into an episode that could have had a disastrous ending when he drove down the Stelvio Pass in Italy, apparently “one of the highest mountain roads of Europe” in complete darkness, save presumably for his car’s headlamps, and he must have been lucky, as well as skilful, to have emerged from this adventure without serious harm.

He says his wife suffers from travel-sickness, so she must have found this most upsetting as well as scary.

Fiorini Lowell has been as successful in his half a century of married life as he has been as a civil servant. Though the couple remained biologically childless, they have found much happiness in adopting a son, Andrew, who in addition to being affectionate turned out to be a musician – an accomplished violinist – thus making Alfred, a music-lover, additionally proud. 

As Laurence Grech, this volume’s editor, said at the book’s launch, Antoinette and Andrew clearly emerge as the other two protagonists of this book in addition to the author himself, and entire chapters are dedicated to his family life.

Alfred Fiorini Lowell (right) standing with former prime minister Eddie Fenech Adami on presentation of the appointment as chairman of the Public Service Commission in 2003. Photo: Kite Publications

Many readers will find the author’s sometimes detailed account of his life as a civil servant in the years following Malta’s achievement of political independence of much interest as he accompanies the account of his career with an account of the sometimes-exciting political events and changes with Dom Mintoff’s Labour Party ousting George Borg Olivier’s Nationalist Party seven years after Malta obtained independence and remaining in power for a good sixteen years.

The author admits very clearly that while always being a loyal civil servant, his political views were Nationalist.

He seems to have made his mark early on as a very reliable civil servant. This explains why during the many years of Labour administration he went on making his way up hierarchically.

Like all other ambitious civil servants, he was always on the lookout for ways in which he could reservedly get promoted and to point out cases where things were not right, as when on one occasion he was left out of being supervisor of vote counting in parliamentary elections, a job he had been doing in the past, and made his protest successfully. 

At one point he was posted to a department within Mintoff’s office, and this made his position precarious when the big anti-government strikes began in the 1980s. 

When the Nationalist Party called for a general strike on Mnarja Day 1982, he made sure that his union, UĦM, could not protect him from being sanctioned if he went on strike, as he was part of management, before he could conscientiously report for work on the day of the strike.

The author makes justly disapproving remarks about Mintoff’s authoritarian behaviour to staff, including senior staff, but managed to stay free from the blistering and sometimes cruel dressing-down of staff, senior staff included. He rarely comments on prominent Labour staff’s less likeable qualities.

The only Labour minister he clearly disliked was Alex Sceberras Trigona who drew his hostility when during an official visit to Brussels, he played a cruel and indeed stupid practical joke on the author, so when Mintoff’s government passed the undemocratic Foreign Interference Act, and Sciberras Trigona, then Foreign Minister, actually forbade the various embassies in Malta to have any contact with the opposition, the author rightly describes it as “a highly repressive and shameful measure.”

It was in 1987, when the Nationalist Party defeated the Labour Party, then led by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, that the combination of the author’s great ability and sympathy with Nationalist policies led to his being drawn into the secretariat of Fenech Adami who, unlike Mintoff, did not sit alone (Putin has imitated him!) at the top of a long table, but invited the author to sit by him. 

He was now in a position to help achieve the great reforms Fenech Adami was bent on making, and sometimes accompanied him when he travelled on government business.

In 1989, however, having been elected one of the new Permanent Secretaries, he left the PM’s Secretariat to manage the important Management and Personal Office (MPO). He also found himself doing very significant things such as the organisation of the impending meeting in Malta of George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev – one of the great international events of the late 20th century.

Alfred Sant’s surprise victory in the 1996 election leading to a short-lived administration, did not affect Fiorini Lowell, and following the Nationalist victory when Mintoff, hostile to Sant, caused Labour to lose by voting for the opposition in a confidence vote, the author found himself permanent secretary in Mifsud Bonnici’s Ministry of Education where he had to deal with important projects.

One of the main ones was an Education Operations Review and the restructuring of the Education Revision and giving greater importance to the introduction and use of information technology. 

The highest point of his career came when after Sant’s electoral defeat in 1998, the author (who had been permanent secretary for the Ministry of Housing under Sant) he was given the key post of cabinet secretary. 

This was a uniquely important time when Fenech Adami planned to renew Malta’s application for EU membership which had been suspended by Sant, and this led to what the author calls “the complex technical stage of the accession process”.

It must have been a great time to be secretary to a cabinet dealing with an impending great change in Malta’s history. It was a pity for him that Malta actually joined the EU when he had already retired from the civil service.

Fiorini Lowell writes with great admiration for his hero, Fenech Adami, but also for the members of Fenech Adami’s secretariat. His very favourable comments can be found in various pages of the book, reserved not just for senior people but also for the people who served under him and a number of colleagues.

It is very probable that his career success depended to some extent on his affability and civility with his supporting staffs.

Kite has done Fiorini Lowell proud by publishing his book as a well-sized hardback with a handsome dust-jacket and several pages of glossy illustrations.