These days children seem to be born with a mobile phone in one hand and a digital game in the other.

So recalling how kids of our time enjoyed life with simple things 50 to 60 years ago seems like an age lost – but should always be remembered.

The latest series of works by Paul Caruana at the Museum of Fine Arts in South Street, Valletta, is like opening a book of fairy tales illustrated with graphic scenes that strike a chord, particularly with children from Valletta.

Christened Short Stories, this exhibition is just that: episodes loaded with emotion and the nostalgia of how he relives moments that left a strong imprint on his and his friends’ upbringing.

It was a time of poverty but necessity led to invention and the children found ways to keep themselves amused.

One watercolour shows a group of urchins climbing over the metal gate at upper Fort St Elmo in Valletta with a woman shrieking at her children to climb down.

“We played cowboys and Indians or knights and Turks inside the fort until the English sentry would chase us and we would have to climb down the metal gate on our way out,” Mr Caruana recalled.

In an autobiographical note, the artist says the best part of the paintings represent his childhood in St Joseph Street, Valletta.

“The majority of the works in this collection is, in a way, an extension of the watercolours reproduced in the book Strada Stretta: It-triq li darba xegħlet il-Belt.

Mr Caruana’s first real teacher was his late father, who was a seaman in the Merchant Navy.

“He illustrated his letters with drawings of places he’d been to and to describe toys he was going to get me.

“Mum would ask me to draw something for him in her letters. I was encouraged to draw, not play football. Just draw.”

The paintings are not just drawings but a looking glass into a world that has slipped silently away as the cyber revolution took hold of our lives.