A photo of myself and three generations of my family, peacefully enjoying a picnic on the lawns of the Mdina ditch, was published in On the Dot (March 31) in the context of various reports on reprehensible acts of illegal rubbish dumping and irresponsible pet owners littering the streets with dog excrement.

We did see the signs asking the public to stay off the grass and we specifically ignored them as a deliberate act of civil disobedience that I stand by. Furthermore, I would encourage all thinking persons to do the same. As Martin Luther said, “one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws”.

Were we tearing up the turf in spiked boots? Were we rampaging round the ramparts hell-bent on their destruction? Were we in any way disturbing anyone’s quiet enjoyment of the gardens? Nope. And we would have been hard pushed to do so given that the ditch was entirely deserted on a Sunday afternoon in spring as a direct result of the unjustifiable request to stay off the grass.

I would hope that the reason we were left to do so by the watchman on duty was not, as suggested, that they lacked the courage to move us on but that common sense prevailed and we were left to enjoy our day and leave the garden exactly as we found it by ensuring that we tidied away our belongings and took our rubbish with us.

I imagine that the size of the budget that was allocated to refurbish the Mdina ditch was significant. However, unless the local council rethinks its present position, the gardens will continue to be underused and remain yet another strange and sterile environment that nobody cares to frequent.

Does Malta really want to become a curtain-twitching nanny State where everyone does exactly as they are told without question, irrespective of the sense of situation?