‘Everything has an end’: Francis Said’s final letter anticipated his death

Shortly before his death, Francis Said, anticipating his death, wrote to his beloved newspaper to declare that his experience with Times of Malta had been “long and very satisfying” and to “keep up the good work.”

His prophetic letter to the editor in February, titled ‘Everything has an end’, was penned because, “on the verge of 93”, he felt his own finale was imminent. It came after following and writing extensively for the publication over the years, described as a very significant part of his life by his son, Oliver.

In a retrospective and possibly nostalgic exercise, Said had attached a colourful and varied list of achievements he had attained during his lifetime, showing a passion for radio, literature, children and charity.

He sent it to “keep in your records until the appropriate time” and to use whichever way the newspaper he held in such high esteem wished.

That time has come and Said died peacefully on June 6, his son announced in view of his long-standing relationship with Times of Malta, thanking the publication, to which he was a dedicated contributor, for being a “part of my father’s professional journey”.

That journey goes back a long way, to the young age of 15, when, in 1947, Said single-handedly set up radio programmes for children under the name of Iz-Ziju Frans.

Said was the pioneer of nationwide charity collection campaigns

His work for children continued in the 1950s and 1960s, with his translation into Maltese of various classics from many languages, including Charles Dickens’ works. For the next 19 years, he hosted over 40,000 children at Christmas parties he organised for the needy in a period of “great want” in the islands.

Said was the pioneer of nationwide charity collection campaigns and the man behind the Round Malta Quiz – a programme that garnered major support from the population for their locality’s team.

Said set up the Federation of Civic Councils and established the International Clean Seas Award and the Midalja tal-Meritu, a forerunner of the Ġieħ ir-Repubblika. He went on to be awarded the Midalja Għal Qadi tar-Repubblika in 2014.

He also had a role in Malta’s membership of the EU with the mammoth task of translating 40,000 pages of the acquis communautaire, the accumulated body of EU law.

But his prolific writing did not stop there, and he had an eight-year stint of publishing daily a unique collection of over 2,000 Aesop’s Fables in the Maltese-language newspaper L-Orizzont.

More than 1,000 pieces of literature, penned or translated by Said, have now found their home at the National Archives in Rabat after he donated them to the nation. Everything may have an end but Said’s life is destined to carry on through his work.