The sudden and untimely death of Louis Bonnici took me back some 40 years to the equally sudden and untimely death of his father.

I have read and appreciated the many tributes that were paid to Louis by his friends and colleagues in the Nationalist Party and in Naxxar and they were all unanimously a testimony to the seriousness and upright Louis over the past years.

But for those of us who treasured, appreciated and missed Mr Bonnici senior in the Blata l-Bajda of 40 years ago, we could never praise enough the respectability, the disciplined and the hardworking man who left his family mourning for him but buoyed up by his example as a pillar of society.

To his wife and children, his brothers and sister go not just condolences and respect after such a sudden death but also an encouragement to hold their heads high that they were family with such a man.

Noel Grima