Late in the evening of September 27 I went to the airport to greet a couple of foreign ­colleagues who were taking part in an international meeting here.

While helping them to put their luggage in my car I put my laptop next to the wheel of the car near mine. I drove off minus my laptop!

When I got to St Paul’s Bay I realised my mistake and drove straight back to the airport car park. The laptop and most of the cars in that section were gone.

Very early next morning I was woken up by a phone call from the MIA Security Office informing me that they had my laptop.

They apologised for phoning so early but when they opened the case to see if they could find something that would identify the owner they noticed the programme of the conference I was to open that morning at 9 a.m. They rightly thought the conference material would be on that laptop.

When I went to the Security Office at MIA to retrieve my laptop I found two very courteous and efficient officers who explained how the computer ended up at their office.

The least I can do is to publicly thank them for the professional way they dealt with this matter.