At 74, Peter Calamatta can say he has enjoyed a full life with many ups and downs, from his well-known gardening and business adventures involving green-fingered television programmes and the beautification of Malta and Gozo through the ELC consortium, to raising a family, battling cancer and even releasing two CDs of classic evergreen songs for charity.

Peter’s travels and tribulations have now been set down on paper by the writer Victor Calleja in a booklet titled Malta’s Evergreen Gentleman. Featuring numerous anecdotes narrated to the author during a series of interviews, as well as Calleja’s own observations on his interviewee and a host of charming photographs, some of which date back to the alien world of Malta in the 1940s, the booklet makes for an interesting and inspiring read.

Born in 1940, Peter lived a colourful childhood that included being brought up in an age of wartime and post-war austerity, appearances on stage and Boy Scout activities. By age 15 he had amassed enough ‘O’ and ‘A’ Levels to become what was known at the time as an emergency teacher, then becoming a health inspector, and finally receiving a scholarship to study horticulture in the UK.

This international experience led to numerous foreign study ventures, including in the USA during the turbulent 1960s. On his return, Peter was appointed a government expert on horticulture, introducing various new agricultural methods to the island via United Nations assistance. Unfortunately, the primitive chemicals he and his team handles in those early days may have had a long-term negative effect on his health, causing, he suspects, the cancer that has afflicted him in recent years.

As he had told this newspaper’s FIRST magazine in 2011: “I have been battling Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma for 14 years. I have seen death very clearly at least three  times, but my fighting spirit, my trust in God and the support of my wife and family saved me every time. At 72, I feel I still have so much more to give so, quite frankly, I’m not ready to check out!”

Indeed, as Calleja explores in his mini-biography, Peter still feels he has a

lot to live for and is striving to keep himself busy and productive with projects for, among others, Fr Hilary’s Millennium Chapel, while enjoying the company of his wife, their children and grandchildren, whom he believes to be his greatest legacy.

Copies of the booklet can be obtained from the Millennium Chapel in St Julian’s or by emailing Peter on [email protected], against a small donation for the chapel.