With the passing away of Joe Cachia Fearne, or Jackie, as we fondly called him, the 25 graduates of the 1945-1952 A&CE course are now down to 10.

Joe was a very special person who seemed to know everything before the professors gave us their lectures. We always turned to him for any points – and there were many – that remained obscure. In football jargon you would call him the coach on the field of play.

As I was the baby of the course, I have a special reason to be grateful to him because often, along with some other more mature students, they would physically wedge me in a corner of one of the club rooms and force me to go through a couple of hours of higher mathematics or theory of structures with them. Things would start falling into shape.

Joe was the undisputed leader of the course and organised our students’ societies. He was particularly good at chess.

He was a great public speaker and he eventually led us to take over the Chamber of Architects, now the KTP. He served on the council for scores of years and helped pilot the setting up of the Planning Authority, serving as chairman of the Planning Areas Permits Board, where he introduced many reforms and was highly respected.

After graduating, he spent practically all his professional career with Cementstone Ltd, the pioneer for concrete works in Malta, and his name was a guarantee for quality. Many of us kept turning to him for advice.

He was actually the retiring type and in his later years he stayed out of the limelight. I was astonished when he once sent me an old client of his with his card. I phoned him up to see what was the matter and he told me that he thought I could serve her better than he could!

The periti fraternity has lost one of its most respected and iconic father figures. To his wife, Ann, and his sons, one of whom is a perit, and an ex-student of mine, I extend my deepest sympathy.