Three True Stories From My Street
Tipping toes into sustainable living with neighbours – or not
Dear Humans of Planet Earth,
Who are you going to be in 2025, on your street and in your community?
Here are three true stories from my street. I’ve been meaning to write to you about them for some months but life got in the way. But what better time than the start of a new year, where we contemplate our present and look with hope towards how we can make it better?
Names have been altered to protect privacy.
Lisa, David and the Plum Tree
David is in his eighties. He lost his wife to Covid during lockdown. He really appreciates the WhatsApp chat for their street that Lisa set up during lockdown. It’s a quiet comfort, knowing that neighbours can keep in touch and offer assistance to each other where needed.
In the summer of 2021, when his plums come in, he brings a full bag round for Lisa. She’s touched. They’ve never spoken in person before. And she’s driven past his house so many times and never noticed the plum tree.
When David leaves this world, the new occupants offer plums to their neighbours through the WhatsApp chat. ‘Come pick what you want.’
Karen, Eoin and the Hedge Trimmer
Karen needs a hedge trimmer this weekend as the gas safety inspection is nearly overdue. The engineer couldn’t reach the meter because of the overgrown hedge but he’s coming back on Monday.
She could buy her own tool – manual or electric – or drive 50 miles to borrow one from her mother.
Her mother suggests she ask to borrow her neighbour Eoin’s instead; he seems pleasant enough.
Karen isn’t sure. In their five years as neighbours, the relationship between Eoin and Karen has been limited to collecting packages for each other and brief, cordial greetings.
She texts Eoin anyway. He is happy to help. In fact, he’s happy to help with the job if Karen runs into any difficulties with it. He lends her both manual and electric tools and he’s beaming so much, Karen gets the sense he wishes he was asked to help more. He has a look that says, ‘I’ve been waiting all these years for someone to knock on my door and ask to borrow my tools. I desperately want opportunities to be neighbourly.’
Cat, Sam and the Bay Leaf Tree
Sam and her family have just moved in. They’ve hired tree cutters to trim overgrown trees in the back garden. The tree cutters want permission to access the back garden that is back-to-back with Sam’s. But they can’t figure out how to identify which front-of-house this back garden matches with, so one of the tree cutters resorts to jumping into the back garden (which is Cat’s), unlatching the side gate that separates the back garden from the front garden, making his way through and knocking on Cat’s front door.
The tree cutter explains that he’d like to work from Cat’s side of the fence, in her back garden, so she kindly offers to open her side gate so he won’t need to walk all the way around. He confesses that the side gate is already open because he came through her back garden!
Cat laughs good naturedly at his audacity and he disappears round the house through the side gate he gave himself permission to open.
She wonders if the tree cutters will be cutting down the new neighbour’s ‘inherited’ long-serving bay leaf tree. It’s none of her business really but she goes outside to ask them.
She tells them that the leaves of the bay leaf tree are good for cooking. They look at her as if she’s a little mad and it occurs to her that they may have never heard of bay leaves. Perhaps they don’t do much cooking. She picks one of the leaves from the tree branches that overhang her back garden and breaks it, inhaling the natural aromas. ‘They’re good for seasoning when you’re cooking meat. I hope you’re not cutting this tree down?’
On occasion, over the last fourteen years, she’s picked bay leaves from the overhanging branch. It feels foolish to buy bay leaves in a glass bottle with a plastic lid - probably imported - when she can pick a leaf from a tree that has extended itself naturally to her.
Cat suspects from the body language of the tree cutters that their employer, the new neighbour, might be on the other side of the fence. The fence itself is too high for them to see each other.
Self-consciously, she adds, ‘Well, don’t listen to me. You have to do whatever the owner tells you to do.’
Obviously.
It’s none of her business but she does hope they aren’t cutting down the bay leaf tree.
The tree cutters don’t cut down the bay leaf tree.
But they cut the branches overhanging her back garden off – so there are no longer any bay leaves she can reach.
Please note that in the UK and quite likely everywhere, the social convention – and the common sense one too - is that a person has free access to whatever overhangs their garden.
Later the tree cutter tells Cat apologetically there’s a fallen branch she can make use if she’s interested.
She brings in part of an amputated branch and removes the leaves. She puts them to dry and shares them with her mother when she sees her a few weeks later.
She remembers pricing a young bay leaf tree at the plant shop. It costed £70 and started off in a small pot. There’s no guarantee that a potted plant will survive either transplanting or potted life in the long term. She’d reminded herself then it was pretty stupid to pay that much for your own tree when your neighbour has one you can share.
She didn’t count on her new neighbour being unwilling to share.
Thoughts for 2025
Building community out of the remains of our atomised existence is critical for human survival, thriving and even well-being.
Online communities have value but cannot substitute for being in relationship with our neighbours and local community.
What are we (you, me, us) doing this year to build off-line community?
Remember, there’s likely a lot already happening in your community that you can join in with. Community building is for everyone, not just those who gravitate towards leading and organising roles.
I’m thinking of setting up a support group for parents with monthly meetings to build strategies around healthier parenting practices in the digital age.
Healthier relationships with our gadgets, relegating them to being our useful tools and never our masters, is inseparable from sustainable living. But that’s another newsletter.
Hoping to write to you more often over 2025!
With Love,
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Radical,
Croydon,
London,
That patch of earth known today as the United Kingdom
Lat +51.51 Long, -0.118
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Hey Kent, I do appreciate you sharing this story. Thank you! And Happy New Year! I’m marvelling that you type on an old fashioned typewriter and then re-type online. I imagine the manual typewriter gives you the first draft and then you do the further edits electronically. Long live your typewriter!