The article 'Philatelic echo of 1989 Bush-Gorbachev Malta Summit' by Carmelo Bonavia (The Sunday Times, October 4) and Paul Mizzi's subsequent letter 'Producing a stamp in record time' (The Sunday Times, October 11) made interesting reading.

As soon as the Malta summit was announced, I decided to create a design (pictured above) suitable for a newspaper supplement cover to be published on December 2, 1989 - the first day of the summit.

The preliminary sketches were offered to an editor of a newspaper but no agreement was reached. Far from being discouraged, I decided to turn my final drawing into a colour print. Printex Ltd was entrusted with printing 1,000 copies in a wine colour. The prints were ready two days before the press centre was set up at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, giving me time to sign and date each one of them.

Efforts to have one of my prints signed by the Soviet and US presidents were not successful. However, some months later the US Embassy informed me that Ambassador Sally Novetzke was going to Washington and was prepared to take a print with her to show it to President George Bush.

I obliged, and a year later I received a personal letter from the US President.

The print has never been published in the media but is featured in my recently published book Joseph Casha Fantasy and Reality.