Dom Mintoff used to wear wide belts because he suffered back pain and not for vanity reasons, a biographer has revealed.

The former prime minister was well known for his wide belts with various personalised buckles. He was also synonymous for smoking a pipe and his obsession with physical fitness.

Fr Mark Montebello touches on Mintoff's health routines and habits in the controversial biography The Tail that Wagged the Dog, which draws on archived documents and internal Labour Party records to retell the life of Malta's most famous politician. 

The book has been slammed by Mintoff's family and is no longer being sold at Labour Party headquarters. Montebello has defended his work.

Dom Mintoff's health routines

In the book, Montebello recounts how, aged 54, Mintoff was determined to remain in shape:

“Some might have judged him past his prime. Dom was not. His near-obsession with keeping physically fit, with his personal training exercises first thing in the morning, his swimming in the afternoon, even in the wintery seasons, his strolls whenever he could, his horse-riding, his consistent health food diet, his meticulous restraint in any excessive alcohol consumption, his daily afternoon nap and his invariably sound sleep at night, all of these contributed to his relatively robust physique.

Dom Mintoff addressing a political conference in the 1970s, wearing one of his customary large belts.

“Moyra (his wife) was an exceptional guide in his health issues and well-being and Dom thoroughly abided by her invigorating ministrations. At fifty plus, someone who did not know Dom might easily have taken him to be what an average person would look like at thirty.

“Perhaps Dom’s most noxious habit must have been his smoking as the pipe never seemed to leave his mouth at all irrespective of place, time or company. Though he almost never had smoked cigarettes, and very rarely cigars, the daily and persistent use of the pipe, his over-three-decades of smoking it (from his late teens around 1933 onwards), the depth of inhalation and the progressive increase in usage, all would have contributed however slightly to the possible physical harm he did to his lungs and heart.

Dom Mintoff's belt buckles

“All in all, however, apart from intermittent minor ailments anyone would have, such as the periodic influenza, Dom seems to have been seldom seriously ill. Two physical conditions which he certainly suffered of, and which deteriorated progressively, were his back aches and his hearing. Dom’s back pains were a continual torment, as he sometimes lamented. He tried to tolerably ward them off by wearing wide leather belts which needed large buckles.

Though he consistently downplayed his progressive deafness, it seems to have been quite vexing to him

“Most buckles were artistically made for him by bronze craftsmen with much care and devotion. By time, both they and the wide belts somewhat became one of Dom’s emblematic emblems.

“Not so his hearing-aids, though, even if his auditory impediment became fairly legendary as he grew older. The problem was with him for a long time. It seems to have been around Dom’s forties, or maybe even earlier, when his impairment began to significantly impact his aural faculty.

“The loss seems to have first started to be most acute in his right ear and then ever gradually comprising his left one too. Though he consistently downplayed his progressive deafness, and sometimes acted as if it did not exist at all, it seems to have been quite vexing to him.

“He hoped that specialists, even in China, might halt or reverse the deterioration. By time, however, especially at the onset of old age, maybe around the 1980s, Dom became almost completely deaf and could not cope, even if grudgingly, without hearing aids.

“As if to compliment his dynamic brain, and his mind bubbling with ideas, Dom was also physically vigorous, always on the up and up.

“Whenever about his business he never seemed to walk but always as if scurrying. He looked like being perennially in a rush; a man with a job to get done. His smallish 5 foot 5 inch height, his skinny body frame, his heart-diamond shaped face with its broad forehead and rounded cheekbones sloping down to a clean-shaven small chin, his sharp lips, his oiled businessman-like haircut, his casual inexpensive wear, his brownish alert eyes, his rounded specs and his sprightly mannerisms, all commended the image of a dexterous, resourceful and competent mover and shaker. And so he was.”

Another excerpt from the biography that looks at Mintoff’s political earthquake in the 1950s will be published in The Sunday Times of Malta.