In our cul-de-sac we were happy, safe and lived in social harmony

Some – particularly those among the cultural elites who have little that is kind to say about our suburbs – might think they have reason to look down their noses at the cul-de-sac, believing it to be the worst extreme of suburbia. Sadly, the case of Barry Carr of Fleetwood, Lancashire, will only have given them more reason to think as such.

I was shocked to read about the turmoil in Mr Carr’s cul-de-sac. Apparently concerned that a couple were “bringing the neighbourhood down”, he set about tormenting them with multiple video cameras (including a false one with a red flashing light pointed into their kitchen), music on a loop blared through a loudspeaker, and a clay model of a fat lady in a blue striped swimsuit – resembling a dress owned by his neighbour – positioned to ensure the woman would always see it as she left her house.

For those who despise the suburbs, the phrase “culde-sac” equals the bottom of the social heap, where there is no escape from observation by residents hidden behind their twitching net curtains. Carr was merely indulging in an extreme form of what passes for good fun in these places.

But these aren’t the views of people who have actually lived in one. My happiest early memory is of sitting on a low kerb in a cul-de-sac, with other small children, eating Spangles or an iced lolly. Beyond us, older kids – who had chalked over most of the pavements and the road – were playing hopscotch or had threaded a long rope right across the street for skipping. If it was wet, we sat in people’s open doorways.

In the early Sixties, before the fear of stranger danger, many of us happily led our infant lives in a one-ended road, surrounded by houses and flats. The biggest excitement was hearing the chimes of an ice-cream van or seeing the man delivering bread and fizzy pop.

As a lower-middle-class child, I wasn’t allowed to visit the council flats, inhabited by youths in winkle-pickers who hung about the stairs smoking. But I quickly discovered the joy to be found in other houses where, unlike me, children were allowed to watch ITV and eat fish fingers. You could walk in and sit with people on the sofa and get fed without an invitation.

We were so safe in our cul-de-sac and my mother knew everyone. She thought that some of our neighbours had coarse habits, such as beating their children with a stick on the front step, rather than doing it inside, privately. An elderly woman once called her in to inspect the results of her husband papering the front room when he was blind drunk. My parents were worried about some small boys who formed gangs and threw stones at each other. But there were people in the low-rise flats whom they befriended and stayed friends with for years.

The post-war English cul-de-sac assumed social harmony. My parents were waiting to buy a house but were content to live close to others who would never afford one. People were moving up, and down, but no one got jealous. There was little noise, none on a Sunday, and no known burglary or car theft.

With the social classes further apart than ever, perhaps the cul-de-sac has outlived its time and people are not neighbourly enough to enjoy them – though I hope not. Even so, they have certainly found a new, sadder purpose: preventing streets from being turned into “rat runs”, and offering a shield against rising crime.