Joe Micallef Stafrace was then a young lawyer working for the Labour Party’s newspaper Is-Sebħ when the party’s first purposely built headquarters was being constructed.

He smiles as he reminisces on the nondescript building in Marsa known as Freedom Press that was pulled down yesterday to make way for a temporary road.

The building was built by the sheer input of a small army of Labour volunteers “motivated by principle”, Dr Micallef Stafrace says.

“Many volunteers from all over Malta and Gozo chipped in to build the place that not only gave Labour a hall and offices but also its own printing press,” Dr Micallef Stafrace recalls.

This was the beginning of the 1960s, a time of political upheaval as Labour supporters and functionaries suffered the wrath of the Church.

Dr Micallef Stafrace, who was also a budding politician at the time, recalls former prime minister Dom Mintoff’s toing and froing with his friends at Socialist International to source the printing equipment. Mr Mintoff, then in Opposition, managed to obtain the machinery from Israel and Scandinavia.

The white building is now a heap of rubble and while for many casual observers it may have been nothing more than an old office block, to veteran Labourites like Dr Micallef Stafrace it represented a symbol of Labour’s social roots.

The Labour Party eventually moved out in the 1970s when the building was transferred to newly created Malta Shipbuilding. In exchange, the party received Australia Hall in Pembroke and transferred its operations to the Maċina in Senglea.

In the 1990s, the party again changed headquarters, moving into its newly built premises in Ħamrun, where it remains to this day.

The site of the former Malta Shipbuilding was given on concession to a private company that intends to transform the area into a hub servicing oil rigs. As work on the project starts, a temporary road will be built on the outer perimeter to ease traffic on the Marsa junction.

This new temporary road will replace the one passing through Dock 7 within the precincts of the former shipbuilding site.

Video above by Transport Malta