The grandson of Duncan Sandys, the British politician who negotiated Malta's independence, traced his ancestor's footsteps during a brief visit to the island.
"I had a wonderful and emotional visit to the University of Malta where, at the time of the independence celebrations, my grandfather laid the foundation stone. The University dug out all sorts of photographs from the archives and it was quite emotional to see where my grandfather had been," the Lord Mayor of Westminster, Duncan Sandys, said.
Named after his late grandfather, the lord mayor came to Malta for the first time to acquaint himself with the island where his influential ancestor had travelled to.
His great-grandfather, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, also had a link with the island.
Sir Winston first visited Malta in 1907, en route to a big game hunting expedition in East Africa. During World War II he insisted Malta had to be held "at all costs" and intervened personally with US President Franklin Roosevelt for an American aircraft carrier to deliver Spitfires to Malta twice.
In 1945, he persuaded Mr Roosevelt to meet him in Malta to discuss a strategy ahead of their meeting with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
The lord mayor's grandfather, Duncan Sandys, was the UK's Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations when Malta's independence was being negotiated. He married Sir Winston's daughter from who he had three children, including the lord mayor's father, Julian Sandys.
"I was 14 when my grandfather died. Since I'm named after him, we had a special bond... He was always ready to offer advice and encourage me to do whatever I wanted in life and not to feel restricted in any way," the 36-year-old lord mayor recalled. This, he reflected, was a message he and his wife, Mary, planned to pass on to their two-year-old son Julian.
"I come from a very political family and one can feel a lot of pressure to go down that particular road. That's not how I was brought up. I ended up as a local councillor (in Westminster) by my own design," he said.
For this reason he would not impose the political path on his son. After all, his own father was not a politician.
Mr Sandys was elected to the Westminster City Council in 1998 at the age of 24 and became lord mayor last year, making him the city's youngest lord mayor. His one-year term ends this month.
Despite his passion for politics he does not plan to take his political career any further at this stage. "There's lots of reasons. But, basically, with a young son I'm not sure I want to expose my family to a 24/7 public life that politics now demands," he said.