Marlborough Express - Weekend Express
Street sharing
Meehan St residents who see a night-time pedestrian shining a torchlight at letterboxes can rest easy: it is probably their neighbour Lapu Oliver. The Blenheim woman isn’t assuming nightwatchman’s duties, but does want to help build a safer street community.
By counting everyone’s letterbox, she will ensure she prints enough forms inviting each resident to join a new Meehan St neighbour support network.
Neighbours Day Aotearoa 2012 has been a catalyst, she says, and husband David and fellow street residents Janet Hadfield and Irene Ross share her wish.
This week the four neighbours gathered at Janet’s house where she showed them old issues of the Marlborough Express, documenting Meehan St underwater during the ‘‘1966 Islington floods’’.
Her house is the one her parents Cyril and Elizabeth Hadfield owned when she was born in 1933.
She and brother Graham had joined the other neighbourhood children kicking balls and playing classic kids’ games hide and seek and cowboys and indians on Meehan St’s many empty sections.
Everyone who lived on the street was known, she says, and elderly residents took time to talk to children after school.
‘‘If I didn’t see some retired farmers after school, the day wasn’t complete for them,’’ she remembers.
David then wonders if things have changed that much. ‘‘I think old people would still look forward to that, but young people don’t have the time, and in those days you didn’t have fulltime working mothers.’’
Times have certainly changed, Janet agrees. The empty ‘‘playground’’ sections have all been built on and many of the larger properties subdivided to form leg-in sections. More houses are rented, too, forming a more transient neighbourhood.
‘‘That’s a problem in trying to get to know your neighbours,’’ David agrees. ‘‘They’re here one day and gone the next.’’ Lapu thinks a network could be built, though, if every new resident is welcomed by others on the street. Irene laughs then challenges: ‘‘You could knock on their door [and say]: ‘hello, would you like a hen?’ ’’
Her friendship with the Olivers, she explains, started when one of their ‘‘crazy hens’’ escaped on to her property.
All are contained now, David assures, inside a chook house located more than the mandatory two metres from any boundary fence.
Besides, Irene is a bit of a hen lady herself, owning nine fowl representing five different breeds of poultry.
Earlier during the 24 years she has lived on Meehan St, resident street parties were an annual tradition, although maybe not everyone was invited.
‘‘They didn’t invite people they disapproved of,’’ she says.
‘‘There was one or two who probably realised it wasn’t their cup of tea,’’ Janet says. But no, the gatherings weren’t alcohol-free, she adds.
‘‘It was usually summer and you’d go down, clutching your bottle of beer and a chair,’’ Irene remembers.
Street parties, a programme for young mums, and a neighbourhood watch where people alert one another if something unusual is seen happening on the street are among their plans for a Meehan St neighbours support network.
Irene likes the ‘‘six degrees’’ theory, claiming everyone on Earth can be connected to another in six steps or fewer.
When she was compiling a family history, she learnt one of her great uncles had married one of Janet’s cousins in 1873.
‘‘If we tried really hard we’d probably find we are related to Lapu as well,’’ Janet says.
Irene adds: ‘‘If we treated our neighbours like we treat our relatives, wouldn’t we all be better off?’’