I write before leaving the island after a glorious week away from our torrential rains in the UK. I am usually very reluctant to go away from Malta but after 20 years coming and going I sense that there is an anti-British streak budding up.

I have been staying in my English friend’s flat. He lends it to me while he is away. He did explain that very recently he was booked twice for marginally parking on shoulder yellow lines put by the side of his own garage without him being informed about it. What is worse, the person who sent for the police is a Maltese woman who has suddenly become the self-appointed neighbourhood watch and is very anti-British.

However, what the Maltese do is not reported but what the British do goes straight to the police station and what is worse she is taken notice of and steps are taken against the English perpetrators probably because it is known that if the British are here for a short time they would not want to get legally involved and just cough up the fine.

What has made me see red was the fact that, again, very recently, my friend was charged €25 for washing his car in front of his garage. This afternoon, I’ve seen it with my own eyes: a Maltese man washing his car in front of his house using a hosepipe and soapy water which came down the hill, across the road and has now stopped past the fifth villa. Nobody seems to have done anything about it and I know that it is because the locals know that this man is Maltese.

Please, if there is this ill feeling towards the British starting here, do nip it in the bud. Our histories have successfully intertwined and just because of some hotheads who bear unreasonable grudges the good feeling that we British or English feel here is being threatened.

The area which I am writing about has a lot of British who have left their birthplace and came to live here with all the money they possess. Do not let us feel unwanted and do not spoil the good feeling that has always existed between our two countries.