Some time ago a letter of mine, which showed appreciation of the improved aesthetics in ‘Piazza Regina’ in Valletta, provoked a virulent attack against the marble monument to Queen Victoria that has stood in the centre of the square for over a century.

The author wished to “push it further back” (sic) and to incinerate it for thinly disguised scatological reasons. It is incredible that a civilised person could harbour such sentiments and express them, publicly.

This monument has ignored the bombs that Nazi warplanes dropped around it, and the more peaceful, but sometimes disrespectful, pigeons that flew around it.

It will also survive blasts of hot stinking air from abroad. But let us not forget that in our lifetime there have been other futile attempts to erase, or distort, evidence of Malta’s past, which, whether we like it or not, have contributed to the Malta we have today.

I am convinced that the Maltese people will defeat such attempts, and that monuments that record landmarks in our history will be preserved and respected, be they of Dante Alighieri, Manoel de Vilhena, Dun Mikiel Xerri, Mikiel Anton Vassalli, Queen Victoria, Dun Karm, Gerald Strickland, Paul Boffa, or George Borg Olivier.

To those readers who already have their fingers on the keyboard to point out glaring omissions, let me point out that I have been deliberately representative, rather than comprehensive, in my selection. I have also kept one monument for separate mention because it stands in a class by itself. That is the one of Malta kneeling at the foot of Christ.