Loving Thy Neighbour
The strength of "weak ties"
My friend – and neighbour – Joanna Lumley was interviewed by Mick Brown for The Telegraph over the weekend. Next week, Lummers will be at the Oxford Literary Festival in conversation with the chief exec of Compassion in World Farming (see details, extreme below). This inveterate traveller previewed what she’ll be saying, namely: “We’re all creatures of the earth, and man has considered they [other animals] are all ours to use. I don’t believe that. I believe they’re fellow travellers.”
I like this. Like Adam, I may have named Pimlico the whippet, but she isn’t my subject, she’s my ally (I am resisting saying “life partner”). I give her boundaries to keep her safe from things she doesn’t understand, and she does the same for me – an emotional support animal to her marrow.
However, the main train of thought inspired by the interview was Mick writing of JL and her husband of 38 years, conductor and composer Stephen Barlow: “They live in south London, which she loves, with nice neighbours, a lovely big garden and a music room where Barlow works.” Within the article, this was an aside. And, yet - as one of those neighbours - I wanted to holler: “Yes, yes! This is yet another way in which Lummers has identified THE VERY KEY TO EXISTENCE!”
As a child, neighbours are everything, the Colossuses of one’s tiny life. My Birmingham infancy was no exception. I can chant their names now: local vixen Mary Mummery, hypnotising me with spidery false lashes; the saintly Mrs Davies, an air-raid shelter in her back garden; the glamorous, barbecue-boasting Jollies, throwers of the best bashes. Each imbued with the magic of reclaimed footballs, royal-wedding parties, bare feet and browned arms.
Later, when we moved to our bigger (haunted) abode, our neighbour was sex therapist and educationalist Dr Martin Cole. Notorious enough to feature in The Rock ‘n’ Roll Years, hacks from The News of the Screws would secrete themselves in his bushes, awaiting scandal. Martin would visit us daily at tea time in his exquisite handmade suits for heated philosophical arguments with we teen Bettses. A bestower of perfume, twenty quid notes and bottles of Smirnoff, he would drive me to the theatre in his tank-like Mercedes, despatching fruitcakes to take to tutorials when I left for the dreaming spires.
Oxford too had its neighbours, first in college, then Jericho. But, it’s a small city, and – after almost a decade – I felt claustrophobic knowing everybody at every turn. When I moved to London aged 28, I relished its anonymity, felt freed by it. Yet, it also came at a cost. I remember going to see a play at the Royal Court in which a character fell into homelessness and thinking: “I’m one screw up away from this, this slipping off the face of the earth.” When I had pneumonia, my beloved boss took me in so I didn’t expire. When I had my credit cards stolen, then cancelled, rendered penniless, I had to taxi into work for another boss to lend me cash.
The capital has historically been a place for people to prove themselves – the Dick Whittington narrative reflecting economic reality. However, this means it’s also a place in which many are lonely, isolated, where people fail. I strive to be supportive to my fellow citizens because of this. It’s a thrill to live here, a privilege, but it’s also a daily challenge, and we need to keep each other buoyant, heads above water, breath coming in.
Not until I moved to my current – hopefully final – abode, was I reacquainted with the sort of neighbours I’d grown up with. Before this, the odd one would endeavour to sleep with me (odd being the operative word). However, neighbours felt like one of the things Londoners were free of along with scrutiny, gossip and judgement. In fact, what one lacks is community, protection, alliance.
Perhaps my late-onset neighbourliness is the product of living in a square. Regarding Dorothy Parker’s observation that the Bloomsbury Group “lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles”, I tell Terence that he can do the daubing, while I maintain a menage. Either way, inhabiting a square – now that it’s not a quad - is an extremely civilised, discreetly sociable way to live. We respect each other’s privacy, yet – in facing each other’s fronts – have each other’s backs.
I’m sure being owned by a dog helps too. Finally fulfilling my canine clock allows me precisely the sort of contained, contextualised contact that a depressive introvert requires, which was exactly Terence’s motivation in presenting me with Pim. (That and light, movement, exercise etc. I am never not being micro-managed.)
When Geoff and Tashi, my “square husband” and his charge, jumped ship to Edinburgh, a light went out of my life.
Ditto Boukje and Lenny. During lockdown, playing cricket in the square, we acquired “Covid grandchildren”, the robustly international Benjamin and Cedric, who sing Happy Birthday in four tongues. Among other big little loves, we have Poppy, Amelia and Lydia, the latter a bestower of knee hugs, whose red tights I have stolen as a look. As to the old, well, we are the old. Although, we still mourn the more senior Les who died at the end of October, famous for smuggling Pim biscuits, Tezzer fags.
Our neighbourhood sits between Little Portugal and Little Eritrea (30 Rock fans will recognise the “Little Chechnya” allusion from Carrie Fisher’s star turn). Lambeth was the most anti-Brexit borough, 78.6% voting in favour of Remain. When Boris Johnson was commuting from Westminster to Camberwell by bike, he did so through a sea of European flags. It’s very global, very liberal, fabulously gay; popper canisters and S&M harnesses littering the post-weekend streets.
This yields unexpected conjunctions across nationalities, ages, occupations. Yesterday, I found myself being advised about dog-breeding via a satellite link with an uncle in the Punjab, shouting: “It’s the penis! The penis!” We have an Olympic athlete (to whom, mortifying, I introduced myself bragging about my square cricket prowess). We have John Lennon’s former assistant. We have nuns, headed by my new best friend, Sister Irena, a complete hoot.
