Townhouse lament

Marisa Micallef laments the Maltese townhouse

I am baffled, confused, hurt. After all, I’m a good-looking townhouse, double-fronted (although that works against you these days because apparently I’m more suitable for redevelopment into flats that way), built and brought up in a well-located street in Sliema. My stonework is now a bit grimy, my blue shutters faded and sunburnt and windswept to a nondescript grey. And I even once boasted a smart gallarija and pretty carvings too.

So why on earth are these grey, badly dressed, pot-bellied guys putting some white, plastic-covered note on my side to say I’m going to be pulled down and replaced with more ugly flats? That’s all I can see around me anyway – ugly flats. Why am I not worth keeping, I wonder? Why am I not loved anymore?

I remember being carefully and lovingly built by hand by craftsmen that make today’s contractors look like cowboys. When the first family moved in, we were packed. A large, noisy family of six kids. The mother died young, giving birth to number six. Then the father married the wife’s younger sister (quite a common practice in those days) who produced another four, but somehow I managed to keep them all happy. Ten children packed into three bedrooms. It was a home full of drama, laughter and people dropping by, something that these tiny nuclear families I see moving into these box-like caves called flats never experience today. No wonder Sliema’s population has fallen, despite all these flats. Rooms are just empty compared to my time.

Mind you, Sliema was different then, too. It was elegant, quiet, peaceful. And people loved us. People loved the Maltese townhouse, and the Sliema specimens were among the most fabulous of all. The Sliema townhouse looked so grand compared to what was built before. Each one of us had something individual to show...