Ġiġi Gauci

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Ġiġi Gauci was a long-time grassroots activist of the General Workers Union and the Malta Labour Party.

Ġiġi was born in Senglea on the 30 May 1911 to Salvu Gauci and Vitor nee’ Muscat. He was one of 5 children the family raised from 12 births.

At the age of 4 he started attending school and continued to take private lessons with Headmaster Fenech after finishing the Senglea primary school. As a child he worked during the summers to help support his family.

His first jobs included shoe repair and joiner’s assistant. At 16 he was employed as a sales-boy by the Colonial Stores in Cospicua but eventually left to do a similar job at the Wembley Stores in Valletta.

In 1936 he joined the Dockyard workforce as a labourer, following in his father’s footsteps. It was a position he held throughout World War II and only resigned in April of 1962 to work at the GWU’s Union Press where he was prominent among the team who created the union’s Sunday paper It-Torċa and concentrated mainly on the commercial coordination of advertising for the same.

His political activism started after the war when he organized the local branch of the Labour Party in Balzan. He remained active within the party throughout his life and on the 19th of April 1988 founded the Għaqda Veterani Laburisti for senior members of the party and served as its treasurer for many years after that.

In his spare time he loved theatrical activities and dancing, and was associated with Dun Ġorġ Preca's [MUSEUM] in his youth, but on 24th of August 1940 he married Josephine Briffa, whom he met in Lija where both their families were evacuated during the war. Together they had four children: Miriam, Violet, Joe and Nathalie.

He died on 6 June 2003 at the age of 92.