It's not even 3am and one song keeps going round in my brain, with the crystal clear inimitable voice of Carmen, the Greenfields' vocalist, singing as she might have done thousands of times, together with her husband Joe, my school companion, "il-Hamrun fejn twelidt" (Hamrun where I was born).

For now that song has found the perfect visual to accompany it, to make it all more real not just to me, but perhaps also to those like me who were born in the baby boom in the latter part of the Forties and to those born later. I am referring to the latest reel from the Radio 105 Network.

I chanced upon this latest reel of computer animated reworking of old scenes from my childhood - Hamrun's church, at that time without the dome, StradaRjali as I remember it, etc. 

Mainly it showed people walking about - all the men wearing hats (lobbja) or caps (beritta) and jackets, all the women in dresses and knees covered.

This is so realistic. Simple scenes from my childhood.

The Hamrun in these scenes is so unlike the Hamrun of today, the multicultural melting pot. That was the Hamrun of the early 1950s, with all the buildings inhabited, all the shops open and filled with customers. 

So different from the Hamrun of later years, where the afternoon lethargy would last till well after 4.30pm.

So different from the Hamrun of today with some key shops still shuttered, like the pastizzi one on the corner of Broad Street and StradaRjali.

There is a dignity in the computer animation of those times. In them we can see the Hamrun of the post-War years.

This is the Hamrun that I remember. It did not have too many wrecked buildings, although the war was very recent, except a couple down at the very end of StradaRjali at Blata l-Bajda.

Those who lived their childhood in those years know those were years of optimism, free from the threats of war and famine.

We remember that optimism that became an incentive to make up for lost time, so the houses became full of children playing in the streets, families in houses too small to cope with four, five or more children.

And as our parents went about their daily lives with hats on every male head and dresses covering all female knees we played and played.

We're all in our Seventies now, or even further, living our twilight years many times far away from the "Hamrun fejn twelidt", in retirement homes or even in other countries far away.

For good or for bad, we've lived our years, made our mistakes, committed our sins, made historic choices - statehood, socialism, republicanism - thumbed our fingers at the mighty of the world, dreamt we were now at the top table, mixing with the high and mighty of the world. 

Then we were caught up in the liberalism wave of the Eighties and began to break down the cultural fundamentals of the preceding post-war years (even if these were not as shiny as we thought they were).

StradaRjali remained as crooked as it always was, a trap of traffic jams when you least want it.

But today's Hamrun has become a cultural nightmare we never imagined would happen. Shops from the far corners of the world have landed in our midst. And we never woke up to what was happening till it was too late. 

The new shops opening up were not symbols of affluence but rather a consequence of a new wave of poverty that crept in unnoticed.

As governments came and went, as millions upon millions were spent leaving Hamrun as it had always been, we now realise, those of us who still bother, that the fundamental problems have not been tackled, let alone solved, have remained, have even got worse, as happens when wounds are left untreated and fester.

I realise, maybe people from my generation do not necessarily share my view, that we have spent all our lives running after a chimera which has not really improved the lot of the people who live in "Il-Hamrun fejn twelidt". 

People just moved out, to Sta Venera, to Attard, where apartments, not houses now, had more light and for a time when one could park not too far from where one lived. Even that was short-lived. We just come back for the Marc ta' Filghodu and then straight back to air-conditioning and quiet. Behind, we leave a Hamrun that visibly deteriorates year after year.

For despite the achievements of later years, in football mainly, the fact remains that Hamrun has gone down the drain. Only the blind refuse to see this.

People mention the shops but hear what the shop owners, present and past, have to say.

Institutions that still meant a lot in the 1950s and that have become a caricature today, also due to our faults, sins and mistakes. 

Like, to mention just two, the Lega for young lads, or the other Lega, tas-Superjur further down. And others.

Compared to the Hamrun in the video clip the streetscape has remained more or less unaltered, if badly battered. Other localities, such as Sliema have had a thorough changeover - though it's only the residents who can say whether that's for better or for worse.

Mainly no new money has come in. It's tired money spread more thinly. The new residents have not brought in anything except their Third World poverty sucking any remaining life from what's left. Like leeches. 

When there was still time to do anything the institutions refused to change. Hamrun has been left without a museum to preserve the past, without a real public library.

The local council preferred to stay hidden in a back street and run a parking scheme than to have a significant presence. Small minds make a small people. 

The two political parties took active part in the deterioration. I remember a mob of Labour thugs marching to attack the PN club. I remember bottles raining down from the Labour club on opponents.

I remember the PN mob turning a festa band march into urban guerilla, the same club refusing to admit the party leader no less on the diktat of a barman.

I remember in recent years so many actively conniving at allowing illegality to become the rule - the home owners renting out to illegals, the police with their station in the main square turning a blind eye at a crowd of illegal bettors especially at World Cup times.

The same police who act deaf, dumb and impotent even when citizens report illegalities.

Nothing better than Mogadishu, one might say, or Addis Ababa or Caracas. So just stop praising it as among the world's best.

It's too late to say sorry, to change anything, now. 

To future generations I say, do not condemn us please. We are what you may become. Learn from our mistakes and do not be afraid to change for the better.

End note

The Royal Opera House must be rebuilt exactly as it was.

[email protected]