Only recently, I came to hear the sad passing away of my old senior colleague Mr Shanmugam at the Highways Agency (HA) HQ based at St Christopher House (SCH), Southwark St, SE1. I had started my career with the Property Services Agency (PSA), where I had started work becoming a Chartered Civil Engineer in 1974. In the 1970's, I met him at the ICE in London, where he was presenting a paper on Bridge Design Standards for the HA's monumental work known as Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB). His papers were published in the 1981 and 1986 Proceedings of the ICE. He was a softly spoken gentleman and engineer, who had already become a Chartered Civil Engineer in 1968, thus 6 years ahead. In 1990 I made a career change to join the HA which had a staff of about 120, broadly divided into three divisions: Bridge Engineering , Highways Engineering and Engineering Policy and Programme. I was in the Highways Engineering , whilst he was in the Bridge Engineering where he was honoured with an OBE in 1997. All three and Regional Offices with1600 staff came under the Chief Highway Engineer (CHE). Interactions with him included discussion meetings called by the CHE and in the corridors of SCH for informal technical chats where I found him to be a very friendly person to speak with as a fellow colleague. When he received the Queen's honours Sri Lankan community celebration and speeches were organised. After my retirement in 2007, I later joined him in 2019 in paying a tribute to another civil engineer and countryman Late S Ganeshlingam. We also had friendly chats during walks near Croham Woods, in South Croydon. His friendly nature was undiminished. Shan was born on one of the islands off mainland Jaffna known as Analai Thivu ('Thivu' means Island in English). I was also born in a larger island called Kayts east of Analai Thivu. Thus, we were often nick named as Thivars, in English Islanders.