I’ve got a great view, but no community
MY TRAIN buddy and his partner, who live on my road, recently had another baby. I thought of setting up a meal rota for them, but I didn’t for two reasons. One, he does the cooking, loves it and is working from home now, so has time. And two, no one does that around here.
My street is off a main road that runs from Brighton to Devil’s Dyke, the National Trust’s ‘legendary beauty spot on the South Downs’. Drive, bus or walk a short distance east and you reach the Laines; south, you reach the sea; and north, steep, rolling hills, sheep, cows, horses, a windmill, fields and a vast dome of open sky. The Downs hang like a painted backdrop when I turn onto our road, inducing a sigh every time.
I found the quiet disconcerting when I first moved here. Mainly frum Jewish families lived on our Edgware street. Every day, I heard the clack of shul-goers’ shoes, teens yelling, kids trampolining in gardens, babies crying, dogs barking, traffic droning incessantly on the A41, gangster rap from car windows, sirens, helicopters, aeroplanes. My first days in Brighton, I stood in my garden and heard nothing. No music. No voices. No kids in neighbouring gardens. It was eerie. I whispered on the phone, it was so silent. Where was the life?
Other things were different, too. I’d been in Edgware a day when a couple knocked on the door with some Yarden red, and said “Welcome to our road.” Kids on bikes were sent to knock for mine; we were brought cakes and cookies, invited to lunch, offered the use of tools and fridges. The day we moved to Brighton, a neighbour said hello and welcome, but I was busy with the removals van, and later didn’t know who she was or where she lived. I’ve only just worked it out, four years on. My kids knew no one. A friend from travelling happened to live on my road: he and his wife had children the same ages. I assumed they’d invite us over (they didn’t), and eventually had to ask if their kids might befriend mine, show them around, introduce them to their friends (they didn’t). I realised we had no support network where everyone knows each other’s business, and all are warm, giving and kind. In one sense that was freeing; in another, like being dropped alone into a deep vacuum.
Maybe I should have suggested the meal rota? It’s exceptionally thoughtful when someone is sick or has a new baby. I’ve provided meals many a time, but having never been a recipient, I can’t say whether they really are a godsend, or whether you get endless aluminium trays of food you don’t particularly like or want to eat. The idea is wonderful, though.
We now have a WhatsApp group for our street, set up over lockdown, initially to facilitate taking food and medicine to those who might need it but which then became a forum for arguing whether taking bin bags to the sports centre constituted an “essential journey”. That led to snide comments about whose fault this was, all linked to their voting choices. Mind you, that only happened once. Now we recommend plumbers, offer unwanted furniture, and say a virtual hello to new neighbours (instead of a real one on the doorstep).
My community is now a WhatsApp group with the odd message asking for a roofer. Today, a woman who works for a chemist offered sample bottles of ‘Birthday Cake’ scented shower gel (smells gross: no surprise it wasn’t a keeper). They’re outside my door, she wrote. Help yourselves! Being neighbourly, I offered her some apples in return but she has a glut herself, so she wrote, “enjoy them”.
I wonder if I’ve ever met her in person. I see from her photo she has a small child — she may need a meal rota herself at some stage, but I doubt robust, caring communities exist beyond religious ones. I might be wrong. Next time someone has a baby or is unwell, I’ll suggest a food rota and see. They might all jump to it. Or we might lovingly make the dishes, and the recipient decline and
write “enjoy them”.
My first days in Brighton I stood in my garden and heard nothing. No music. No voices. It was eerie. Where was the life?