Pieta' misses its cheerful tinsmith

Anyone who drove along the busy Pietà seafront will have noticed a cheerful elderly tinsmith perched inside a tiny room making weather vanes as his bicycle was parked outside.

The landmark presence of Żeppi Cassar will surely be missed by all those who appreciated the endearing character on the traffic congested road for more than 30 years.

The 76-year old tinsmith, known to many as Żeppi il-landier, died on Wednesday evening when a car driven by his friend Paul Laus, 52, who also died, slammed into a tree along Council of Europe Street, Luqa.

Yesterday, the day after the fatal accident, the freshly-painted green door of Mr Cassar's Pietà getaway, which he called "the room", was locked shut and a notice read: "12.00 p.m. - 6 p.m. Open".

"I recently helped him with the new signs. I'm concerned that, with him, the tinsmith trade has died," his grandson, Mark Ellul, said as he sat in his nannu's living room surrounded by relatives.

Mr Cassar, who would have turned 77 on August 20, was the youngest of 18 siblings and learnt the trade from his elder brother. Between the age of 15 and 21 he worked in the streets shouting out "hawn il-landier" (the tinsmith's here) and people would go out of their houses to get their pots and pans fixed.

At 21, he started working with the government, fixing radiators and then spent the rest of his life working with the milk company the Milk Marketing Undertaking.

About 35 years ago the landlord of the Pietà seafront house allowed him to make use of the little room, situated under the parapet, to practise his hobby. Since he retired, at 61, Mr Cassar spent more and more time in the room hammering away at tin sheets to make weather vanes, butterflies, lamps used in cemeteries and lamp-post decorations.

"He would practically give away his work for free. He'd ask people to pay him as much as they thought his work was worth and there were times when he even accepted a packet of cigarettes as payment," his son, Charlie, said.

"Many people knew him. He was a landmark in a way. He was 'the tinsmith of Pietà and, as motorists drove past they'd shout out to him, stop to say a word or even take photos with him," he said as he sobbed his father's loss.

As Mr Cassar's relatives reflected on the past, they described him as a very simple man who was happy with everything in life and did not care much for riches.

"He would do anything to make people laugh even at the expense of making fun of himself... He loved feasts, such as the Good Friday procession and the Marsa feast of Maria Regina," his wife, Ġuża, said.

Her eyes welled up as she recalled how, when she saw him last on Wednesday afternoon, he was eating lunch at home as usual. He then told her he was going to the Pietà room to do some work.

"I told him not to be long and not to let me worry... Who would have ever thought I'd never see him again," she said adding that, in August, they would have celebrated their 53rd wedding anniversary.

Since he rode a bicycle, his family - that includes seven children and 11 grandchildren - were always worried he might get hit by a car but he insisted he only had to travel from Pietà to his Marsa home.

"The irony is he never drove a car, yet he died in one," Mr Cassar's other son, Tony, said.

Charlie Cassar added: "On Wednesday, he left for the room at about midday and, a few hours later Paul Laus called to ask for him and I told him he had gone to Pietà."

He explained how, despite the age difference, Mr Laus and his father had been close friends for about 20 years. They would meet for a beer or go to village feasts or għana (traditional folk) festivals together.

The family did not know where the two were headed when they crashed on Wednesday evening. The police said the accident happened on the two-lane road just beyond the petrol station heading in the direction of the airport. Mr Cassar and Mr Laus died on the spot when the Kia Avella they were in crashed against a tree.

"At about 8.30 p.m. the police called here and told us they had been involved in a bad accident," Mr Ellul, his nephew, said adding: "He was a very healthy man... It's a pity he had to die in such a tragic way".