I am writing this at 4pm on 1 May during a truly splendid display of civil disobedience but I don’t want to raise my voice.

No, I am leaving the island and have been asked, a number of times, to write to you before I go. They might listen to you, you’re not Maltese! True, but I’ve known Malta since the 1970s and lived here for a decade and nothing that Joe’s written so far has even provoked a reply or denial much less altered the situation here in any way.

Seven words say it all – This was a marvellous place to live – but Malta is hell – bent on its own destruction and if I cannot appeal to your sensibilities (one glance at Tignè Point settles that one) can I, perhaps appeal to your pocket?

Tourists will not come here to gape at a half-baked version of New York – to breathe the dust and suffer the sounds of a building site. You must think there’s still some magic in the very name of Malta if you imagine that the ugliness that’s being built around you will be overlooked by your visitors and that the tip that you are making of this sweet earth will encourage tourists to return.

Maybe you don’t want any tourists, nor the foreigners who live here who have an eye for the remaining beauties of this place. Maybe every inch of earth here only represents a euro. If Francesco Laparelli and Girolamo Cassar were alive today (they had Valletta, Heritage City – built for you to pass on) do you think that they would have chosen to flood the place with ugly concrete constructions that have to be air-conditioned – shelves of rabbit hutches like the eyesore called St Angelo Mansions? Forget the shapeless lump now standing in its shadow – visualise a huge euro in its place – now that would look better and have some real significance.

If you’re planning a once-in-a-lifetime trip to St Angelo – the so-called “Jewel in the Crown”, there’s no need to hurry. You can’t get inside and you can’t even walk round the side path anymore. “Why?” I asked, “When will it be re-opened?” “Not for a very long time; they’re building apartments and a spa.”

Anywhere else in the world I would have said: ‘You must be joking – but not here, not in Malta.

I could go on about Mnajdra and massacred trees and concrete gardens or a bronze bust that never returned to the Notre Dame Gate or a huge picture of St Helena that never returned to her gate either but I see you’ve put your fingers in your ears and I’ll leave you.

Audrey Duggan

Cospicua