This sort of crosses over with what I posted about cities being easier places for people to lay dead in for years than in small towns and villages, and although this has changed to some extent, I still think this to be true.
Growing up I accepted this, but also knew for certain I would leave for the anonymity of the metropolis because of this.
As a child I knew lots of people in Ossy, and many of those I didn't know knew me through my parents, or grandparents, either through the bakery, or church, or politics.
I enjoyed spending my twenties and thirties living in London, and the fact that you can do whatever you want. You could even not pay your tv licence, not that I ever did, and know it wouldn't be in the Observer, and your shame would be discussed in pubs and shops throughout the district. Something that never happens in our large cities.
Although I never thought I'd move back here, I'm so glad I did, and I love that there is still a sense of community.
My next door neighbour used to go swimming and to the sauna with my mum in the seventies. The neighbour at the other side shares my genetic makeup, because we are distantly related through a common Welsh ancestor. Another neighbour used to play cricket with my dad and my godfather, and the man next door to him took my parent's wedding photographs and my first baby photographs. My aunt used to babysit Anthony Flanagan, another of my neighbours...all this in a little street where I happened to buy my house.
Things have changed, and will continue to do so, but I still love the sense of belonging that living in this part of Lancashire gives me, and as Gayle has said, technology means we have the abilty to know people we probably wouldn't meet in everyday life, which has to be a good thing...I think.
