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Neighbourliness versus privacy ... discuss

DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
edited October 2018 in The potting shed
We get a lot of requests for ideas to increase privacy in back gardens ... I remember times when back gardens were divided by low fences or even just a strand of wire between some posts ... children would pop back and forth, housewives would chat as they hung the washing out and in the evenings fathers would discuss their day with their neighbour as they dug the veg patch.  

I was pondering on the current need many seem to have for a degree of privacy just not possible if we live amongst other folk.   

This is interesting http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/the-decline-neighbourliness

Have we lost the social skills we need in order to live as part of a community?

What are we losing in our search for privacy?  Are we in danger of throwing out the baby with the bathwater?

Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





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  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    edited October 2018
    New build gardens are much smaller than in the past and much more overlooked but I suspect it's a response to increased stress during the working day and also less privacy in our lives with the increasing use of intrusive software for FB, Instagram, Twitter and all the unwanted ads and spam that follow any online activity.   I also think people have lost the knack of simple chat and being part of a community and the give and take that all entails.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    edited October 2018
    I'm not so sure that new build gardens are that much smaller than those built 100 or so years ago 
    Image result for golden triangle norwich

    This is currently a very sought after area of Norwich ... built in Victorian times.  

    But I agree with you when you say "...I also think people have lost the knack of simple chat and being part of a community and the give and take that all entails...."

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • herbaceousherbaceous Posts: 2,318
    That is a really good question Dove with an incredibly complex background and, like most things, I suspect it has a lot to do with personal experience and one's own childhood.

    My back garden is surrounded by other back gardens (6 in all) and only one side is hedged and shrubbed - mainly because I am semi-detached from that neighbour and we generally catch up in our front gardens!

    It can be distracting when neighbours want to know what you're doing, bring you up to date on their family or just gossip but I wouldn't give it up for the world. I would feel claustrophobic with too much 'privacy' and, since I have reached an age where nude sunbathing has the neighbours hurrying to close their curtains, I wouldn't know what to do with it  :)

    It must be different if you grew up in a town, have difficult neighbours, work all day or indulge in a secret vice. I have been here for over 40 years and I have always known my neighbours and felt very safe, maybe I am just lucky.
    "The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."  Sir Terry Pratchett
  • RubytooRubytoo Posts: 1,630
    edited October 2018
    "I remember times when back gardens were divided by low fences. "

    Yup, ours was a four foot fence when we moved here. We got along well with our neighbours but partly due to their liking for nude sunbathing they put up a six foot one.
    I understood and did not mind, but would rather have had the lower fence. I felt like I had done something wrong, like being a nosey or overbearing neighbour, which I hope I was not, nor am I now.
    Neighbours we now have, I am glad it is higher.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    edited October 2018
    I grew up on a farm with the nearest other house a field away ... I then lived in a series of detatched houses and then on a smallholding in a small rural village for many years ... then I moved to a terraced two up two down in the centre of the area in the photograph I posted ... a completely new experience for me ... some folk had built high walls and fences ... some had virtually shared back gardens ... a real mix.  I really enjoyed having neighbours for the first time in my life  :)

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    Yes Dove but many more homes were built in the 30s and post war with bigger gardens.   I have friends who have a Victorian terrace in Ealing with a back yard barely as big as our kitchen and uninterrupted views of neighbours' gardens and windows for several houses along and behind.  They know the next door neighbours well enough to chat but only on one side.    I wouldn't like it at all.

    I have made the effort to befriend our new neighbours here and we stop and chat when we see each other and it certainly makes life easier without in any way infringing on our, or their, privacy.   
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • karen paulkaren paul Posts: 230
    Personally for me I don't mind the odd short 10 minute chat but some people do like to have you rotting for over half an hour whilst they talk about themselves when you've got things to be getting on with and you start to avoid them like the plague!(that's not to say my immediate neighbour does, they're lovely) So my back garden is my sanctuary where I just enjoy the peace, the front garden is the area for being social and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. 
  • Hampshire_HogHampshire_Hog Posts: 1,089
    I rented a house before moving here that had about a 90ft back  garden and I must say I think it had just the right mix, up near the house patio area was your normal six foot fence three panels nice and private, this then dropped to the low wire fence along the lawn and veg garden luckily I got on with the neighbours on both sides and we chatted most days over the said fence.

    But I agree generally people have lost the skills to chat and be sociable, part of a larger community and its such a shame.


    "You don't stop gardening because you get old, you get old because you stop gardening." - The Hampshire Hog
  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889
    I'd consider myself a very chatty and sociable person, but give me privacy any day.
    It's like silence, you can lose it in an instant, but you can't easily create it. 
    I chat with some of my neighbours , but not all.
    Devon.
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    I find going slightly deaf has been a bonus!
    If I haven't got my ears in, I can't hear next door' s whiny grandchild who drives my husband bonkers.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
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