[WATCH] Fenech Adami and his Cinquecento

Former Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami held a Q&A session at the University of Malta this week before signing copies of his autobiography ‘Eddie - My Journey.’

During the session, the former PN leader, who turned 80 last month, recounted his early experience in politics.

Fenech Adami, who first contested elections in 1962, reminisced how he was “nominated as candidate for the Nationalist Party in the 1962 election without no one asking me whether I would like to stand or not.”

Fenech Adami had failed to win a seat in that election, however he was elected to Parliament in 1969, after winning a seat in the casual election held following the death of an MP.

The former President said that he had “revolutionised” campaigning back in the sixties, long before the digital age, by holding corner meetings at 3pm.

He recounted how he would go around his constituency in an old Fiat Cinquecento with a borrowed amplifier on the back seat and a loud speaker sticking out of the tiny car’s sunroof.

“TWe'd hold the corner meeting at 3pm. The idea was to speak to women, who would be at home. We would start off with nobody watching you, nobody listening to you. I would say, 'but we can't start just yet... we need at least a dog'. And then a dog came along and I was told 'you may start',” he said to the audience’s laughter.

Fenech Adami's recent autobiography 'My Journey' traces his political career spanning over 40 years, in which he served as leadr of the opposition, prime minister and President.