Town Mouse Tom Hodgkinson
It is often said of city living that people don’t know their neighbours. Cities – according to the cliché – are packed with selfish households who run home in the evening, shut the blinds and turn on Strictly Come Dancing. People are too shy and nervous to greet their neighbour with a cheery wave, as in days of old.
My experience of living in London is completely different. Our house, as was the case for Suggs of Madness fame, is in the middle of our street. We’re in a row of Victorian three-bedroom terraces, most of which have been turned into four-bedroom terraces with enlarged kitchens. It’s not quite the mansion overlooking Kew Green that I had in mind as I was growing up. But they are lovely houses and the sense of community is palpable.
While the tube station is only five minutes away, it can take me half an hour to get there. I keep bumping into people and nattering, particularly if Pilot, our black Labrador, is accompanying me to the office. We have a good old grumble about our children and then feel better.
There is a pleasing sense of being more or less equal, since the houses are all the same, like a communist housing block or the kind of ideal community dreamed up by William Morris.
Neighbours help each other in practical ways. The other day I was delighted when one popped round to ask if she could borrow an egg. It was raining and she’d just returned from Tesco and had discovered an egg deficit, but could not face going out again. I was thrilled to help her out – we’d just had a delivery, including a dozen free-range, organic eggs.
The next day, an egg appeared on the doorstep inside a round, plastic box with my name on it. How charming is that?
I have climbed through neighbours’ gardens when I have forgotten my key. Our neighbours have given babysitting work to my daughter, for which we are all grateful. They have also heroically not complained when we have had teenage parties. They pop in when we’re away and feed the cat, who loves these visits – our neighbour spoils her with Whiskas Temptations with Salmon when her normal fare is dry biscuits bought in bulk from a wholesaler.
Our neighbours run campaigns against fly-tipping, take on carfuls of twentysomethings who chuck takeaway cartons on to the street, protest against unfair parking restrictions and unscrupulous housing developments, and name and photograph door-to-door swindlers. They keep each other’s delivery parcels for collection later and have shut our front door when we’ve gone away – we left it swinging open in our panic to get the plane in time.
Neighbours leave old toys outside their house, with a handwritten sign saying ‘free’ on them. We’d been wondering how to dispose of a bulky old PC for ages. Then we left it outside and it was spirited away in hours.
Neighbours don’t make emotional demands on you like your friends and family do. You can keep up a cordial relationship of mutual benefit without them becoming difficult as family members do.
Woe betide any dog owner who forgets to scoop their poop: they will soon see a trio of arrows scrawled in chalk pointing to the offending pile alongside the words ‘Pick it up!!!!’
The Sikh corner shop at the end of the road, where I buy beer and chocolate, often seems to be hosting a sort of neighbourhood salon. Various characters loaf around there, discussing the owners’ new dog, Brexit or Buddhism. On 23rd December, I popped in for a bottle of Budvar and was given a lovely wallet made of denim for Christmas.
If you don’t know your neighbours, emulate my Brighton friend David Bramwell. He gets to meet them by holding an annual ‘Zócalo’ – all the neighbours put their chairs outside on the street and sit there for the afternoon.
It’s for all these reasons, I suppose, that Christ considered the commandment ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’ to be the second most important.
From love for your neighbour springs a myriad benefits; both spiritual ones, which I suppose is what Christ had in mind, and strictly practical ones.
It was really sad when we lost Eric, who appeared to have spare sets of keys for everyone, and would always help out. A year ago, I rang his bell to ask if he would pop in and feed the cat as we were going away for a couple of days. ‘Yes,’ Eric said. ‘No problem.’ But then his carer appeared at his shoulder.
‘He had better not say yes to helping,’ the carer said, ‘because he’s too weak.’ He died two days later. What a brilliant neighbour.
‘An egg appeared on the doorstep in a round box with my name on it’