  This contribution to the book in honour of J.S. Bell will probably differ
from the remaining ones, in particular since only a part of it will be devoted
to specific technical arguments. In fact I have considered appropriate to share
with the community of physicists interested in the foundational problems of our
best theory the repeated interactions I had with him in the last four years of
his life, the deep discussions in which we have been involved in particular in
connection with the elaboration of collapse theories and their interpretation,
the contributions he gave to the development of this approach, both at a formal
level, as well as championing it on repeated occasions. In brief, I intend to
play here the role of one of those lucky persons who became acquainted with him
personally, who has exchanged important views with him, who has learned a lot
from his deep insight and conceptual lucidity, and, last but not least, one
whose scientific work has been appreciated by him. Moreover, due to the fact
that this book intends to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the derivation of
the fundamental inequality which bears his name, I will also devote a small
part of the text to recall his clear cut views about the locality issue, views
that I believe have not been grasped correctly by a remarkable part of the
scientific community. I will analyze this problem in quite general terms at the
end of the paper.
