I have made a few half-hearted efforts to find out if there is a St Julian’s Preservation Society. An article by Albert Buttigieg has prompted me to write.

Our family has lived in Malta on and off since 1977. My husband and I have lived here permanently since 1999. St Julian’s has always been a special place for us as being all that is best about an attractive Maltese bay.

Our elder daughter has also been here, together with her husband and three children, now aged 13, 10 and eight. They even sent the children to school here for a term, so they are more than fleeting tourists.

But they have become steadily more disappointed with the island and St Julian’s is a prime example. Once, the buildings were varied, telling various aspects of Malta’s history and community. Roofs were of different levels, arches and balconies and balustrades abounded.

Now, all those buildings are being lost to a uniform rectangle of parallel lines, railings suitable for the deck of a ship and not an arch anywhere. I used to say that a Maltese builder could make an arch in 30 minutes starting at the top with the keystone suspended in the air. How sad, oh, so sad, that all of that has gone. Nothing but uniformity and ugliness has taken its place and nothing remotely Maltese – not even golden Maltese stone.

What can we do? How can we make people understand that the ‘golden egg’ is indeed getting eaten up by greed and ignorance? Don’t Maltese people understand that beauty sustains us and inspires us? It’s one of the qualities that makes our holidays.

I was brought up in Singapore. So much history has been lost.  But, at least, there, at last, a vibrant green natural environment is encouraged.

We despise the natural environment here. What can we do? Tell me.