Love Thy Neighbour?
Neighbours … everybody needs good neighbours … so the song tell us, but
is it true? "Of course it is!" I hear you cry. But do we all mean the
same thing? And has the good neighbourliness of the past been replaced
by a more modern version?
There's a tendency for us to believe that everyone but us lives in a
fabulous community of neighbours who leave their back doors open for one
another, deliver care packages whenever someone's ill and welcome
newcomers to the street with a basket of freshly-baked cookies. And this
may be the case, although I suspect this level of togetherness and mi
casa es su casa-iness exists only in fictional communities like Wisteria
Lane. Nevertheless that Hollywood-inspired perfect community is
something after which many of us yearn. And occasionally you can be
blessed with the most fabulous of neighbours.
The road I grew up in in
the 70s and 80s, despite being in an ordinary suburban area, had somehow
managed to remain largely untouched by modern life. Many of the
residents had lived in the street for decades and were well-schooled in
the art of good old-fashioned neighbourliness. The couple next door to us were at the
heart of local life. Their Boxing Day gatherings alone were worthy of
the finest Agatha Christie house party - the entire street in
attendance, every kind of refreshment and nourishment imaginable - all
that was missing was the body in the library.
And yes, a few days after we moved in our new neighbour peered over the
fence offering a cup of coffee. Five minutes later back she came with a
silver tray, a pot of freshly ground and percolated coffee, milk, cream,
two types of sugar and her best Denby pottery to drink it from.
They
became the type of neighbours that you couldn't visit without coming
back home with at least a couple of cabbages, a pound of runner beans
and a bag of apples from their allotment. I once lost my tennis ball
over the fence. Instead of just chucking the ball back, our neighbour
suggested I come round and use their larger lawn. By the time I had
arrived he had erected a proper net, changed into his whites and
arranged for his wife to bring out a jug of homemade lemonade. For an
eight-year-old girl it was like living in the pages of a Famous Five
book. Of course, being so young I took it all in my stride so it was a
bit of a shock to move, at eighteen, to a more 'normal' street.
That's not to say that we didn't still have great neighbours, but modern
life tends not to support chatting over the garden wall. As my very
wise dad says: 'without communication you don't get community'. How
true! Most of us go everywhere by car. We don't stand at the bus stop
with the chap across the road or walk the kids to school with the lady
next door. We can go all week without even passing the time of day with
our neighbours. Acccordingly our expectations for and requirements of
them have changed enormously. What most of us now want is the kind of
neighbour who is friendly, reliable and considerate. Who is there if we
need them without knocking on the door five times a day.
And, perhaps most importantly, we want neighbours who are as
considerate of those around us as we try to be. We want neighbours who
don't have lots of noisy parties late into the night. Neighbours who
park sensibly and safely, on their own more than adequate drives.
Neighbours who don't make us feel guilty when we have to knock on their
door to collect a parcel the postie has brought while we were out.
Neighbours whose guests don't churn up the carefully manicured grass
verges with four wheel drives. Neighbours who promise to put right
damage done to our properties during work to their properties without us
having to ask. Neighbours who get on with replacing the hedge we had to
remove so workmen could get access to their gardens. We'd like
neighbours who keep their fronts tidy, who speedily get rid of old
carpets and not leave them on the lawn. Who don't leave burglar-friendly
ladders propped up against our shared fences. Who get building work
done as quickly as possible and don't leave the rubble from a dismantled
garage or roof in a huge pile for us to look at every time we open the
curtains. And who put out the correct bins on the correct days by the
appointed time, rather than assuming that the wheelie-bin fairy will do
it for them - it won't be a good fairy, it'll be a good neighbour.
If you're suspecting that these particular complaints might hint at a
few raw nerves, then you'd be right. All of these points are complaints
I've heard from friends over the last couple of years or which we've
experienced. From people who try to be the best neighbours they can be.
Who make sure they don't impinge on the comfort of their neighbours.
And who increasingly have found that many of their neighbours don't
reciprocate. It seems that less and less do people consider the impact
of their actions on those around them. So much so that it feels like a
developing epidemic.
So why is this? Is it just that we don't care so much about people we
don't know? Or are we so controlled by rules that we have become
determined to push them to the edge? Are we simply more selfish than we
used to be? I'd like to think none of these are true and that things are
not as bad as they seem. But I fear that the rest of us have gotten out
of the habit of politely complaining, worried that we might cause
offence or even exacerbate a situation, just as we most need to voice
our concerns. We see so much in the news about neighbour conflicts
developing into nasty confrontations, that we've lost faith in our
ability to settle problems. We've begun resorting to polite but
anonymous notes, or worse still to complaining to everyone except the
person causing the problem. Can we really expect a problem to be
resolved if we don't talk about it? Could it be that our neighbour just
doesn't realise how irritating his or her behaviour is? Perhaps, then,
we should be braver and put our concerns into words? I might just give
it a try. We might not be going on their Christmas card list, but surely
it's possible to be good neighbours without being good friends?