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15 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 4 JULY 2021 NEWS ently, Dom's oft-used subterfuge was to befriend the British or Maltese husband of whichever particular married woman he was interested in, and give both all to frequent access to the family's inti- mate life. Tensions at home mounted as much as they did in Dom's political career." His children were sent to boarding school. But soon, Moyra left in late 1966, fleeing one of his crazy frenzies at home. She would leave Dom again in years to come, returning after promises from him. But as Montebello makes out clearly, Dom's political battles in these years and in the 1970s, created a severe strain on family life. "Dom very often seemed to value work more than [Moy- ra]. Subsequent to her daughters' de- parture to England, especially between 1963 and 1966, Moyra was terribly lone- ly. Her husband's chronic infidelity, which must have been all too obvious to her did not help. Dom could easily cherry-pick from the hundreds of ador- ing women who flocked to his meetings quite ready to indulge his every bidding. And he did." Montebello says his go-between was Lino Cassar, who even arranged private viewings of pornographic movies at the Renters cinema in Valletta's Zachary Street. "When it came to lovers, Dom had a further helping hand from his friend Louis Naudi, the handsome womaniser architect" (and partner in Prestressed Concrete with Mintoff's brother Ray- mond) "who willingly passed some of his girlfriends to Dom," Montebello writes, speaking to one of Naudi's draughtsmen at the time. "This must have been of course very taxing on Moyra… Despite his disloyalty and frequent outbursts of rage at home, such devotion must have been incomprehensible to people close enough to see her anguish. It must have been obvious how she was recurrently left on the verge of a complete break- down," Montebello writes, speaking to daughter Anne McKenna. In 1966, Moy- ra upped sticks and left Malta with her daughters, at one point beginning Brit- ish law proceedings for separation. She returned in 1970, only to discover Dom had never been as lonely as she was made to believe. *** N ow arriving at his hallmark premiership of the country, Mintoff's imperiousness and heavy-handed politics came to the fore; his own private practice appears to have flourished through his faithful architect Louis Naudi; and between 1982 and 1990, he sold eight pieces of land that yielded him an income of some US$13 million in today's economic value. Also now his rage-control became notoriously out of hand, both at work and at home. Moyra left again in 1972 while Dom was negotiating the British defence finance deal. He asked British prime minister Ted Health to intercede with his estranged wife, successfully. But then in 1973, she left him again. And here Montebello details in a harsh light yet another disputed, but so talked- about excerpt of the Mintoff legend – relayed to him by Dom's private secre- tary Joe Camilleri and daughter Anne. "Shortly after Moyra's flight, Dom brought home to live and sleep with him the 50-year-old wife of his younger brother Daniel. Astrid, eight years Dom's junior, made herself quite at home, and acted accordingly. Her husband, how- ever, could not take it for too long. On one particular occasion, on 22 February 1974, he came to blows with his brother, and Dom ended up in hospital with se- rious head injuries which needed being operated upon. Thirty stitches were re- quired," Montebello says. The family of Daniel Mintoff object to this representation of the incident. A for- mer Times of Malta newspaperman also took issue with Montebello's assertion that Mabel Strickland, the Times of Mal- ta proprietor, covered up the lewd sto- ry by letting it out that Dom had fallen from his horse at Delimara. But Strick- land's decision was relayed to Montebel- lo by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici. Moyra returned in 1974. "Dom's ugly scar on his forehead remained a memento for the rest of his life. He persisted in seeing Astrid covertly nonetheless" – so was the author told by Maria Camilleri. Many years later in December 1991, compromising photos of the couple were produced in parliament by Lorry Sant, the former Labour minister, in a threat to Astrid's son Wenzu Mintoff, then a Labour MP on the warpath against the corrupt Sant. The photos were secreted away by the Speaker, and remain un- der lock and key to this day. As told to Montebello by Dom's anointed succes- sor Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, the photos had been passed on to Sant by Mikelanġ 'Kelly' Fenech. It is often disputed that Dom actually won the affections of the actress Vanes- sa Redgrave in 1978. Be that as it may, Montebello states that Mintoff never relented in his philandering. "His flings, both with foreign and local girls per- sisted even when... he took a steady lover thirty-six years his junior. Marica (not her real name) was a stunning 23-year- old who volunteered to help the Labour Party during the 1975/76 electoral cam- paign," as told to him by 'Marica', who would have been born in 1952. "She certainly got more than she dreamed of bargaining for. Dom fell head over heels for her. As might be expected, l-Għarix became their alcove, as it was for most of the other girls. Marica, however, was dif- ferent since she and Dom forged a truly earnest bond. On and off the relationship remained for more than three decades." Moyra and Dom had prepared their will in August 1979, and again in July 1997. "Monetary means apart, their for- tune of immovable property, made up of thirty-two pieces of property in nine different localities of Malta, amounted to around US$12m in today's economic value." *** T ime was not kind on Mintoff. Even with all the aff luence he could enjoy, Dom grew paranoid, obsessing with foreign spies hounding him at home, a fact that exposed him to public ridicule. "His neglect of himself, maybe also medically, seemed to be hastening an irreversible deterioration process... it became a frequent occurrence for people in the streets to see a scruffily- dressed diminutive 94-year-old Dom tottering alone with leaden plastic- bags in hand as if going somewhere, talking to himself, lost in some reverie of his own. It was heart-breaking. On Thursday, 16 September 2010, Dom's final passion commenced.... the first of seven hospitalisations in the next two years.... Even if in the offing for a long time, when death came to Dom in the evening of Monday, 20 August 2012, at his home in Tarxien, just fourteen days after his 96th birthday, the nation was stunned." Indeed – as Montebello prefaces his seminal work – Mintoff's memory is mat- ted with a thousand myths. But Dom's memoirs and his biographer have sepa- rated the wheat from the chaff. Monte- bello did not give us Mintoff. He gave us Dom, the man "devoid of the embellish- ments and disfigurements which mutat- ed his public image, both by him and by others, mainly for political reasons." Montebello knows very well that his work is disappointing, right now, those who expected a eulogy or denunciation of Mintoff. But it would be crude to rob Dom of the complexity that all men and women of action, of historical note, possess. "It would be unreliable to... try to unlock his individuality with a single key... presuming to understand the man in one sniff as if he were a child's open book." Montebello, by being granted passage into the Mintoff's secret world, is allowing us to marvel, with him, at the contradictions, triumphs and regrets of one of Malta's enduring men of power. mvella@mediatoday.com.mt Dom's public displays hid the reality of his imperfect 'devotion' to Moyra, who loved him dearly but which he repaid by 'abusing her saintly patience' with his philandering and irascibility. She left the marital home for the UK many a time, at one point Dom calling on British PM Ted Heath to intercede between the couple Mintoff with GWU general secretary Matty Grima (right). Behind Grima is 'Kelly' Fenech Maria Camilleri, one of Montebello's sources and a confidant of Dom Mintoff Scarface: Montebello says Mintoff's brother came to blows with him after the latter's wife moved in with her brother- in-law when Moyra upped sticks in 1974