My parents were married at St John’s Co-Cathedral, Valletta before the war and my father was stationed here, at the Royal Naval Hospital after the war. Therefore, I remember vividly as a little boy the impressive sight of the Mediterranean Fleet at anchor in the Grand Harbour: cruises, destroyers and (I think) at least one battleship.

That splendid display will never be repeated exactly. However, while on a tourist trip round the Grand Harbour I could not help wondering whether Malta GC would welcome the reappearance of the Royal Navy now that a base in the Gulf is being revived and Great Britain appears, at long last, to be on the path of renaissance after half a century of decline.

Indeed, as the only other country in Europe that drives on the left, boasts red pillar boxes and red telephone boxes, the outward signs of what that inscription in Palace Square calls the love of the Maltese people for magnae et invictae Britanniae seems, outwardly at least, clear – and the bonds that link our two nations still seem to be – deo gratias – astoundingly close.

Is this, I cannot help wondering, the general feeling here?