Matthew Mifsud (June 9) says that he is writing "to express the disappointment of the people of Balzan" at the decision not to ring bells during the night. He isn't. He is expressing his own disappointment and assuming that everyone else in Balzan feels the same way.

I myself am not from Balzan and don't know the situation there, but here in Qormi the situation is sometimes terrible. On St George's day the bells started at 5 a.m. and did not let off until 6 a.m. - a solid hour of wild bell ringing in the early hours of a working day. During Sundays or any day with any religious significance you get long stretches of frantic bell ringing throughout the entire day, as if someone had let off a kaxxa infernali in the belfry. What happened to a simple "ding dong"?

There was a time when many people did not have their own personal clocks, but that time is long gone. Nowadays, church bells are there purely as a tradition, not as a means of telling the time. Therefore we must also take stock of other things, such as whether it is still justified to keep ringing the bells all night long, "on a 24 hour basis" as Mr Mifsud desires.

Personally, I don't think it is unreasonable to stop the bells ringing during the night. You see, another traditional night-time activity is to sleep.