You know the saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child’? Well, it turns out the same is true for looking after the elderly. More precisely, it takes a cul de sac.

Moving up to Lancashire from London has shown me the value of local communities and friendly neighbours. When I lived in London, I had no idea who my neighbours were. I would sometimes hear the door to the flat on the second floor close and, in the four years I lived there, I never once heard a peep out of the neighbour on the ground floor. I only knew of their existence by the bicycle that was sometimes propped up against the hallway wall. Unless, in a surreal twist, the bike was in fact the neighbour.

Coming to live with grandma in the cul de sac was very different, all the neighbours knew I’d arrived to help her and, during the COVID- 19 lockdowns, they would stop to chat (from a safe distance) during our allocated hour of exercise. This friendliness surprised me at first and I wasn’t too comfortable with the level everyone is in each other’s lives. I don’t know why, I guess it may have something to do with my trauma at the local butcher loudly congratulating me on getting my first period when I was visiting as a teenager (grandma has never had any boundaries when it comes to gossip). I gradually relaxed into the ambient friendliness and realised just how wonderful it can be.

We all look out for each other, we help each other and, to put it simply, we care. This is particularly great when caring for the elderly. The next door neighbour will sometimes take grandma out for lunch and always takes her to her regular podiatrist appointment; a huge help when I’m working. When doing the weekly shop, I always make sure to get scones for the elderly neighbour two doors down because I know she loves them and can’t easily go out. The same neighbour also enjoys a good gossip over the phone with grandma.

Christmas Eve usually involves a procession of neighbours popping in to give grandma her Christmas presents as the doyenne of the street; and at Easter I make sure to get chocolates for everyone and deliver them like a demented bunny.

The supportive atmosphere is also helpful is less pleasant circumstances. Early one Saturday, the elderly neighbour’s dog walker knocked on our door worried that she couldn’t get an answer. I grabbed the keys to her house (we each have spare keys) and rushed round, expecting the worst and dreading what state I would find her in. Fortunately, after calling her name a few times, as I was checking each room in her house; it transpired she was having a shower and they’d been a timing miscommunication as to the time of the dog walk. Phew.

This neighbour’s life has been saved a number of times by other neighbours over the years when she’s fallen or, as was the case just last week, when the doctor made a mistake and prescribed her medication that nearly killed her. When this neighbour turned 80, she invited us all to lunch at a local restaurant and tearfully thanked us for our help. I looked around the table, I felt a wave of gratitude for all those ordinary people who do something so extraordinarily rare- they care and they act.

It isn’t all that grim up North, having wonderfully warm people around you makes you forget about the near-constant rain…maybe that’s why nobody wears raincoats up here, although that is still a mystery to me.