Good Neighbours
Posted: Tuesday, October 25, 2011
by MKDS
Storm Multi-Media Technologies Ltd
Going back as far as I can possibly remember, there was a time when 'Being Neighbourly' was something you had or did with pride. From each waking morning to each and every night before you turned in for bed - including throughout the night, too - the Neighbour would be that one person who watched out for you and those that lived and shared the home with you.
The weeks, months, even years that can indeed turn into decades of competing, bickering and arguing will suddenly come to a head, however, with one or two elements of surprise. It is these elements of surprise that may come as small or as large a package which reveals the full extent of the "Competing".
One of these examples I, myself have experienced first-hand in a time when the country was just as screwed up as it is today. My Neighbour was a middle aged man, his attitude on life could be measured by the way he greeted everyone each morning with a loud rough grunt and wave of his hand. The whole matter of saying "Hello" was eventually found to be more trouble than it was worth, and so people, including myself stopped and so in our own way ignored or avoided him.
A few months passed by when eventually I like everyone else on the street were called upon by the police. The angry Neighbour had been burgled and some old family heir looms had been taken. It appeared that the man had been asleep after a long day of drinking, which was another reason people left him to himself, too, after being shouted at for somehow looking at him in the wrong way. It was the alcohol talking but nonetheless, it was his overall attitude that stopped any further regards or favour for him.
A couple of weeks later, the man’s house had been targeted again, only this time it was in broad daylight. Two Neighbours saw the intruder, including myself, and it was a battle of conscience that led me to say and do nothing about the burglar. That same afternoon when the Neighbour returned home he called the police who did the only thing that they could do - house to house enquiries of the whole street. Nobody, including myself said a word; why should we, the Neighbour was an arrogant, beer drinking ungrateful man who deserved only the friendship of his own kind - the kind that had burglarised their friends home.
The second example, which I have been told could not hold me responsible for and yet rests heavily on my thoughts regularly, was that of a Neighbour in a block of flats where my wife and I lived in Wales. The Neighbour appeared harmless enough at the beginning - and I guess in hind sight he was at the end - even though we discovered him to be a long term Heroin user, he was polite and well-dressed at the best of times.
Known to the neighbourhood as a very strange person who liked to know everything about everybody, he became involved with a few bad people that he referred to as "Friends", who others would refer to as 'Heathens'; people who would rather sell their Gran for a profit than look after them in their final years on Earth. They were the kind of people who claimed to be your friend but who joined together with their other associates and friends who would then rob you blind.
The young man that lived across from us had recently moved a friend in who had hit hard times (something that was not allowed by the housing association, unless you were in a relationship or married) and who needed a place to keep low from the other bad people that he owed money to. With a lot of banging around and noise throughout the day and through the early hours of the morning, many of the other residents confronted him and asked what he was doing. To this he said that there were a lot of rats getting into his flat, though this was not true, except for one occasion that was put right by the Rhyl Council.
One evening there was an argument between the tenant and the man who was sharing the flat, and a lot of banging and noise pursued up until 11:30 PM, then finally stopped. It was with a great sigh of relief that everyone started to get a good night’s sleep, until the paramedics and police knocked at the door. The Lodger had beaten the young tenant to death with a baseball bat - the very same baseball bat that had been used to kill the stray rat in his flat. Later my approach to the police - which is rare - begged the question: Would approaching the matter of loud noise at the time have saved that young man's life?
The police told me that it would not have made any difference, except that there may well have been two bodies being identified that morning instead of just the one. The reason given to the police for the murder was that the tenant would not stop talking when asked to be quiet.
So, Good Neighbour or Bad Neighbour, the choices are there for us all to choose. By the changing attitudes within the world it is such a long distance travelled from a time and place where kindness and support has changed greatly. Our responses to that one person living next door has transgressed itself into a force of its own, while at the final flicker of one's day, we are no more sure if our saviour is of a Neighbourly response, or that where we are to perish in the surroundings of our own selfish jealousy, bitterness and competitive arrogance.
Today my eyes are open for reasons of the KT, while my belief that the world is so full of selfishness that we need more people to stand up for what’s right and slam that which is wrong, the days are not without the feeling of sadness and remorse for those that like the people in this article were merely defenceless. Our world is a small planet that is becoming even smaller every day, so the least we can do is lend a hand to those that are weaker for a stronger tomorrow.
© Marcus De Storm 2011
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)It's hard to know when to give a helping hand and when not to. I helped a young woman who lived next door to me - her husband was beating her. But he threatened to kill me! It's awful that violence has become so commonplace that we have to over protect ourselves like this, and in a way isolate ourselves.Thank you Jennifer, for your Comment.
It is a Society that we are continuously told we must adapt to because its in for the long haul and until a real solution is found, we have no immediate resolve. Though I am a man, my attitude and opinion to these so called men who beat women is that they are "Cowards", and do not deserve to share the same space as other's. That is only my opinion.
As I am a lot older and wiser these days, and as I made myself a promise that I would never allow anything like what happened back then happen again, I refuse to isolate myself - because it is my family now that I need to protect from all this mindless idiocy. An idiocy that must be shielded from my children, but in a way that they themselves understand that turning a blind eye can cost lives.
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