Vocal Voices

Earlier today I found out that a neighbour of mine had passed away over the weekend; and whilst that obviously always is sad, I find even sadder still that this is a person lived in the block of flats next to me and I didn't even know she was ill

I live in a cul-de-sac and when I first moved there there were a lot of the older folk still around, the road is mainly council housing and a lot of the families that live(d) there have been there since they were built in the 1950's, so in some cases we are talking 3 generations. But one by one the older people have either passed away or moved into care homes and younger families are moving in. When I first moved it was quite interesting talking to some of the older people (esp as it turns out that my road seemed to be made up of families that intermarried and everyone seemed to be related to everyone )

But now, besides a few of us, hardly anyone seems to say hello to anyone. We have become such an insular society and it's sad (well I think so)

That is sad Ria.

It costs nothing to say hello, or good evening does it, and can sometimes make a difference to someone's day.

No chance of not knowing your neighbours (or anyone really ) here in Spain - walking to work this morning I must have had Buenos días said about 30 times to me - and of course I replied likewise.

That is sad, and it sounds very much like where we lived before we moved here. Our house was built in the 1920s yet we were only the third family to live there and the same was true of most of the other houses. The majority of our neighbours when we moved in were elderly and would always stop for a chat, it was lovely...but sadly as time went by they moved into care homes or passed away and new families moved in and the neighbourhood lost it's friendly feeling
I knew the names of most of the people along our stretch of the road within a month or so of moving in, yet when we moved out I only knew a few.

There is a lot more moving around now than there once was, and that cannot be good for community cohesion.

The house I was born in was bought by granddad in about 1930. We knew everyone in the street as they had all been there roughly the same time. When we moved in 1969 it was to a new build on the other side of Leeds, but we soon got to know everyone because they were of a 'type'. Not many people at that time considered houses as financial investments, they were homes, to be lived in. Then came the boom and bust periods, and things changed forever.

It seems to me that houses are now seen as commodities for a lot of people, to be traded up in order to move. It's sad, but that is how the wheels have turned.

When we moved into this close in 1973 being southerners in a northern village,we didn't expect to make friends so easily. In fact, we became friendly with everyone straight away .... We were all 'new' because it was a new build estate. We all reminded friendly over the years. Coffee mornings and a baby sitting circle I set up. But, eventually, people began to move away. We are now the only original owners in a close of 17 properties and, being housebound, the only people we are still 'friendly' with are in the 2 properties opposite. I doubt I would recognise anyone else in the street now

We moved onto an estate of new builds in 1991 and hardly anyone spoke or mixed, then with the experience of new people moving in by our old house we were totally taken by surprise when we moved here. Like Nanna, we were all new here although some had been here for a year before we moved in as houses were completed at different times. It's such a lovely little community. We have our nights out, barbecues out on the street, John takes the teenager from opposite out on bike rides. Just last weekend some neighbours got married and everyone from our end of the close was invited to the evening reception. By chance we all happened to be leaving at the same time and walked around to the hotel/pub/restaurant/wedding venue (it's just around the corner and is co-owned by another of the neighbours) so we all walked around en masse, bagged a table and there were 14 of us sat around a table for 8, with various children on laps

Sorry to hear about your neighbour Ria

We know our NDNs here, but that's about it. People nod and are friendly in passing, but that's about it. Most people are out at work during the day........ It is a very quiet estate, it suits us to be honest

It's funny here because before we moved in we said we'd be friendly but keep ourselves to ourselves. And speaking to another neighbour, they'd said the same when they moved in
I think we have the best of both worlds in that it's quiet around here and most are out during the day but people are very friendly and sociable.

That does sound nice Jo, I must admit

I don't mean to sound antisocial but our last house had so much noise intruding on us, from the road, and the houses on the back, that this place is pure bliss in comparison

Same here, we were on a main road close to the town centre with a busy social services office and a magistrates court right opposite so cars were coming and going from there all day long. Behind us was a house which faced onto an even busier road. Weekends we'd have the drunks walking home from town at all hours of the night. Oh, and we weren't that far from a very busy stretch of the M6 so, depending on the wind direction, we'd have the noise from that too. Next door was noisy.

Here is absolute bliss!