I refer to the story of Henry Miller (right) who died recently three days after he celebrated his 103rd birthday. May he rest in peace.

Two other Maltese nationals have also just celebrated their 103rd birthday: Sister Lydia Formosa (March 12), a Gozitan, and Filomena Muscat (March 22) of Żejtun, living in the UK. The High Commissioner to the UK, Joseph Zammit Tabona, visited the latter on her birthday and a congratulations letter was sent by the Prime Minister describing her “an Ambassador of the Maltese people” and saying that our country holds the memory of her very dearly.

There will be five more Maltese citizens this year who will be celebrating their 100th birthday while, hopefully, another 15 will be100 plus.

Since my appeal four weeks ago for the names of those Maltese citizens who reached 100 years of age during the last century, more than 200 persons have been included in my list, of whom 177 are women.

I am sure there are much more and hope that others will come forward to have a comprehensive list.

The National Statistics Office is estimating that, by 2050, Malta will have over 700 people reaching the 100-year mark.

From the information so far received, the oldest I have recorded were two persons who celebrated 106 years of age – John Mary Farrugia of Dingli (died 2007) and Emanuela Borg of Balzan (died 2004) and two others (Carmela Muscat of Rabat) and (Ascolese Maria Concetta of Paola) who reached 105 and two months in the last seven years.