The news of Guzè Chetcuti's death brought back a lot of memories.
The first dates to the war years when I was a little girl in Rabat, always listening to the Rediffusion, and he was a very familiar voice, reading the news, government notices and announcements.
Little could I have known then how many times and in how many ways our paths would cross in later years and that when he died (more than 60 years later) I was to write this tribute to him as a good friend of my family's - and from the very same house in Rabat.
When I left school and decided that I wanted to go to University, my parents sent me to Mr Chetcuti for Maltese private lessons, in preparation for my Matriculation.
I can never forget my surprise when he returned my first homework to me - every page was bright red. I must have spelled every word incorrectly and for the corrections and his explanations he must have used a whole inkpot. Yet, although it was mid-February 1951 and the Matric exam was at the beginning of June, I passed - and I didn't just scrape through either.
This could only have been due to his being such an excellent teacher. His explanations and the stencilled notes he gave us students were clear and unforgettable.
If you want to write "youth/s" in Maltese, think of "cat/s", "qattus/qtates" and you will know how to spell "zaghzugh/zghazagh" - or rather where those dreaded 'gh's go! For those of us coming from schools where no Maltese was taught, Maltese spelling was a real bugbear.
Yet, Mr Chetcuti made me see how logical Maltese orthography is and, although my parents had sown some seeds of patriotism in me, he helped it grow. Besides, as a writer himself he was able to give me some excellent tips for essay writing (which also came in useful later on, when I started writing articles for The Sunday Times).
When it came to Maltese literature, then, he was able to tell me a lot about the various writers whom he knew very well, as he himself was one of them. (Gozitan poetess Mary Meylak never came to Malta. But once when the other writers had a reunion she sent them a present: a model of a Gozo boat full of marzipan cheeselets).
And always, in the background, during the lessons, there was the mouth-watering aroma of Mrs Chetcuti's baking wafting from the kitchen. (Mr Chetcuti had a sweet tooth.)
At this time, my father and Mr Chetcuti, both men of letters, were already good friends. I remember very clearly how pleased Papa always was whenever Mr Chetcuti translated any of his poems from the original Italian into Maltese.
He would hold the original while I would read out the translation and invariably he would pronounce it "good". There was hardly ever any need to change a word or phase. This also meant that Mr Chetcuti's knowledge of Italian was very good indeed. Besides, he was able to 'understand' the poems even more than us ordinary mortals.
Each neatly typed translation was invariably followed by those two lines, slightly to the right of the page, which I came to think of as Mr Chetcuti's 'trademark': "Original: Giovanni Curmi, Traduzzjoni: Guzè Chetcuti".
As ever with Mr Chetcuti everything was always neat and tidy.
This is neither the time nor the place for me to mention all that Guzè Chetcuti wrote about my father or that my father wrote about him. After all, everything can be seen in The Giovanni Curmi Collection in the Archives and Rare Books Room of the University of Malta Library.
Whenever my father won a prize, or even an honourable mention in a literary competition in Italy and we told Mr Chetcuti about it, he would immediately write a press release and send it off to all the local newspapers, often adding a Maltese translation of the winning poem/s for publication.
What's more when Papa died and I phoned Mr Chetcuti to give him the news, he immediately rushed off to Rediffusion House to hand in an obituary notice. Someone from the newsroom who happened to see him in the corridor asked him what he was doing there and when he told him that Giovanni Curmi had just died, the broadcaster wanted to interview him about Papa there and then. Although most extempore, this interview was a real success with Mr Chetcuti getting all the facts and all the dates right - a real perfectionist in everything he did.
When my father was still alive, Mr and Mrs Chetcuti often visited us with their children, and I remember at least one grandchild being brought to visit us too. Papa, who loved children, was always delighted with their visits.
After his death, my mother and I remained in touch with Mr and Mrs Chetcuti and I remember how sad we were when Mrs Chetcuti had a terrible accident, resulting in her untimely death.
The years passed, my mother died, and Mr Chetcuti continued to send me his latest publications Hbiebi, l-Awturi Maltin and others too. Beside me, on my desk, as I write, I have a copy of his last one Hajti: Mill-bidu sa qrib it-tmiem, with a dedication to me: "the daughter of (his) dearest friend Dr Giovanni Curmi".
I end this tribute not only by thanking Mr Chetcuti for teaching me so well; for making my father so happy by translating his works so splendidly; and for his sincere friendship, but also by expressing my admiration for his literary output - poems, novels, short stories, plays and other writings, all of a very high standard indeed, making him one of the greats of Maltese literature - as well as for the fact that he went on leading an active, normal life, busy at his computer, almost until the end.