Neighbours

We have learned the names of our neighbours either side. Two doors down there's Malcolm and Anita, next door to us on that side are Vicki and Paul, then us, then the other side of us are Audrie and Benny, and the other side of them are Pete and Trish. Along the road a few yards — on the opposite side from us — the DHL courier driver lives; I don't know his name but he's a nice man, and his house is easy to recognise because he's just had his roof done. Everyone else's roof is brownish and his is red (it looks very snazzy, too).

We pray for them and their households every morning, and for the so far nameless neighbours who live in that far-off world, The Other Side Of The Street. All I know about them is that they have damn fine parking skills. Like us they've turned their front gardens into forecourts, and how our neighbour opposite manages to wodge two saloon cars and a works van onto his space is beyond me. He does it flawlessly.

When my kids were little — when Alice and Hebe were a year old and Fiona wasn't yet born, we moved house, from a two-bedroomed Victorian terraced house to a three-bedroomed one nearer the shops and  — crucially — a school. 

The high-schoolers from the Bruderhof came and moved us, bringing a van from their workshop to ferry everything from the old house to the new one. In their community the people move house quite a lot, so they were very experienced at it and did it brilliantly.

The only houses we'd considered were those within short walking distance of a school entrance and on the same side of the road. Otherwise, when Rosie started school, going first just mornings then afternoons, then all day but home for lunch, it would have meant getting a toddler and baby twins dressed for an all-weather outing several times a day. I thought it would be better to stand on the doorstep and wave goodbye to her, watch her walk along the road and arrive safely at the school. 

The house that we settled on was right next door to an elderly couple from our church, Frank and Jean. One of the first things Frank did when we moved in was make a gate in the fence so our kiddies could get through to their garden — and house — whenever they wanted. He was very patient about Alice and Hebe coming through to raid the petals of his flowers as ingredients for their mud stews. 

Frank and Jean were in the church choir, and so was Betty who lived half a mile along the road. They also had a telly, and we didn't. I remember them bringing Betty home with them after choir one evening for a cup of tea, and she was entrance to walk in to their living room to find five (or it might have been four depending on how long we'd lived there) little girls sitting in a neat circle on Frank and Jean's living room floor, watching their telly.

Jut sound the corner in Perth Road lived Sandy, who also went to our church, with her two daughters who used to babysit for us. Most evenings I'd go round to Sandy's for a cup of tea and a natter, and my children knew where to find me if they needed me.

Two other people from our church lived a few minutes walk away in Paynton Road — Pete and Karen. Several times a week they'd call in and spend the evening with us. Karen had the loveliest voice, and we used to sing sometimes.

We never locked our house, so anyone could come in whenever they wanted, and Frank and Jean always left their back door unlocked so our children could get in to their place and watch the telly.

Nobody had to go very far for these relationships. You didn't need to own a car or pay a subscription or sign a data protection thing or get DBS-checked. I don't know if, in the normal way of things, we'd even have been friends, because we were all very different from each other. It's just that we were neighbours, and we were all in the same church.

And then something changed.

Pete and Karen got a telly. After that, they never came out in the evening, and we hardly ever saw them again.

When I think back to those days, and compare them to the modern world, it's helpful to have that specific memory of the moment Pete and Karen got a telly. It identifies for me why those relationships with neighbours are no longer a Thing. Because here I am on the internet, talking to you on the other side of the world, but I don't even know the name of the man across the street who is so remarkably skilful at parking.