I often host people from around the World through Couch Surfing. The young guests usually find a preferred spot on a beach and spend most of their holiday there. Not for mature people in age though!

Over 10 years ago I hosted a lady from Sardinia and when I took her to Xlendi she got utterly devastated with the developments then. She said that this happened in her town and she didn’t expect to find the same plunder on a ‘well spoken for’ island of Gozo. I didn’t dare to show her Marsalforn!

I am retired now and if we talk of quality of life, each day is like a week to me and each hour is worth as much as a whole day. ‘Stay at home’ has emptied our streets and thee one dominating thing was SILENCE.

It took me back to my childhood in the 50s and 60s when silence was a ‘healing sound.’ In the morning you could hear the street hawker calling the housewife to come and buy fresh fish. There were no horns used. The rabbit and eggs vendor had his bell like the ones in a hotel reception but bigger placed on his horse cart. We would run to Victor and say ‘doqqilna wahda.’

Then after lunch at around 1pm the island goes to sleep. The few tourists and few Expats knew this and they never complained but learned to enjoy the ‘siesta’ like all the locals. It might be an interesting debate but I dare say that the best sound was – The Sound of Silence.

Studies show that silence can actually stimulate new cell growth in the brain, improve memory, and release tension in the brain and body.

Focusing on this, I might add that as we can do many things to better our quality of life, we have to reintroduce the ban on noise between 1 and at least 3pm. This means by neighbours who want to hammer their nails on the wall, the walkers by shouting in the street while talking, phone calls in the street as if the further away the call is, the more one has to shout, street vendors blowing their loud and squealing horns for many seconds, pyrotechnics, loud motor bikes or bicycles with a petrol engine with no silencer, car stereos, and horn honking.

Apart from noise in my street, in our neighbourhood, how about public places? Why do I go to my favourite beach and I have to listen to that repeating loud music of the banana rides! Why can’t they invest in Bluetooth water proof headphones and not contaminate the beach with sound pollution?

It is the same with private radios. I do not mind children screaming and giggling, that is what I used to do, but why do I have to listen to RTK, 101 or One radio, when I had left home to get away from all of this and get some peaceful time to myself on the beach? This also should apply after 11.00pm at night.

For many elderly this may not be a problem because nature often lowers the capacity of hearing noises and those with hearing aids could switch them off at any time, but for people at home, at work in offices, students at schools, they need a better quality of life by experiencing a period of silence.

We have been living for hundreds of thousands of years if not millions, in a quiet serene environment, we desperately need some of that peace and quiet now.

Thank you,

Anthony G. Zammit.

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