Former President Censu Tabone turns 98

Born on 30 March, 1913, Dr tabone was the youngest 10 children and lived in Victoria, Gozo through his early years.

At the age of 11 he was shipped off to Malta to become a boarder at St Aloysius College. He entered the University of Malta in 1930 where he graduated as a pharmacist in 1933 and as a doctor of Medicine in 1937.

In 1943 he married Maria Wirth, with whom he had three sons and five daughters.

During World War II he joined the Royal Malta Artillery and served as regimental Medical officer, as general duty officer and later as a trainee ophthalmic specialist at the Military Hospital in Mtarfa. He was among the doctors to treat the first soldiers wounded during the first air raid when he was stationed at Fort St Elmo.

In 1946 he proceeded to the UK to further his training in ophthalmology, where he achieved a Diploma in Ophthalmology from the University of Oxford. He later obtained a Diploma in Ophthalmic Medicine and Surgery of the Conjoint Board of Royal College of Surgeons of England.

In 1945 he was entrusted with the anti-trachoma campaign in Gozo and was responsible for almost eliminating the infectious eye disease from the island. This campaign served as a pioneer project and together with the World Health Organisation he helped launch similar campaigns in many other countries, most notably Taiwan, Indonesia and Iraq. From 1956 he served as a member of the International Panel of Trachoma Experts of the WHO and was a consultant with this organisation for many years.

Tabone joined the Maltese political scene in the early sixties and became a member of the Nationalist Party’s Executive Committee in 1961. He was the Secretary General for ten years from 1962 to 1972 and the First Deputy Leader of the Nationalist Party from 1972 to 1977. He was elected President of the Executive Committee in 1978 and held the post until August of 1985.

He contested for the General Elections in 1962 and was elected as a Member of Parliament and became Minister or Labour, Employment and Welfare in 1966.

He was re-elected in 1971, 1976, 1981 and 1987 in the Msida, St Julian’s, Sliema and Gzira districts.

Tabone was appointed Minster of Foreign Affairs in 1987. He made a proposal to the United Nations in New York for greater attention to be paid to the ageing population of the world which led to the Vienna Action Plan and also resulted in the establishment of the UN Institute on Ageing in Malta in 1988.

In 1989 he handed in his resignation as Foreign Affairs Minister and was appointed president that same year.