Although expected, when the news arrived it still shocked me deeply.

The irrepressibly funny, at once sensitive and exasperatingly self-opinionated Peter was taken away from us.

A lifelong constant (we were schoolmates from the age of 11), there was never quite a time where he did not feature in one’s life.

He enthralled friends time and again over dinner with his hysterically funny impersonations and mimicry of everyone and everything. A shrewd observer of people, he embraced and loved life, or better still, he seemed in some ways even larger than life.

When his illness hit him, it was a bitter pill, not just for Peter to swallow but for all those who knew and loved him.

Long and lingering he bore it well and fought against it. In the end, it proved too strong and he was recalled to his Creator last Saturday on his own mother’s anniversary.

The myriad of anecdotes, of shared experiences and long telephone conversations discussing everything under the sun and all that we passed through in the last 55 years shall not be easily forgotten – indeed, they will undoubtedly remain fresh.

I will carry them to my grave.

Farewell my dear friend Peter and thank you for being impossibly you.

Hugh Grima