I have only met Frans Sammut four times but he has left an impressionable influence on me ever since I met him for the first time during a programme for children and teenagers. 

Back then, I was a mere third-former with a huge interest to write and tell stories, a reason deemed suitable by the programme’s producers to choose me to speak directly to him. On hearing of my interest, Frans thumped me on the back and in his booming deep voice told me “Well done Clive! Write, write and keep on writing! This is how all writers start.”

When many years later, when we were both reading some of our own writings in a literary evening, I brought up this incident and, thumping me again on my shoulders, he beamed widely: “You see? I was right!” 

Although we did not keep in touch much, my encounters with him and his work remain a treasured memory, all the more poignant that nowadays I write scripts for children’s programmes and write fiction with an even fiercer passion than I had when I first met this great Maltese writer, who first and foremost was an incredibly encouraging man.

■ Clive Piscopo

Scriptwriter of IŻ-ŻONA (TVM)

Qormi