Are we close to neighbours
 

After a couple have commited suicide after living on just £57 per week were none of there neighbours able to help,? or call for help.Could we see this happening near us and would we do something?

I think yes. What do you think?

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

I can't clean my oven, without my neighbours breaking my door down to save me.

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

Yes...well we are anyway.
My husband and I have kept an eye on our elderly neighbours on either side of us.
The old lady who lived above us has now gone into a home, but prior to this we would do shopping for her, my husband did odd jobs...changing light bulbs that kind of thing, and I cooked for her 4 times a week.
The elderly gentleman who lives below us is almost 80, but relatively fit.
we keep an eye out for him.....and I cook Sunday lunch for him and usually he shares a meal with us during the week too.
We just consider this to be a neighbourly thing to do.

I think that what happened to that couple was deplorable. Immigrants can come into this country,having paid nothing at all and they get looked after......this couple were British, in need, and were badly let down by the welfare system that should have been there to protect them.

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

On a serious note, I still think there is a neighbourliness in this part of the world, even if it isn't quite like it used to be.

I'm lucky. I have great neighbours.

Living in London for a couple of decades made me appreciate this part of Lancashire.

It took me a couple of years down there to get some neighbours just to say hello, until I wore them down.

London's great if your a sexually deviant, serial killing, music loving, party giver, who happens to value your privacy.

Well it was for me.

:D

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

I've been flippant, but agree, this recent event is a heart-breaking tragedy.

Yup, also agree. Where was the helping hand they needed? Which we have to now offer every Noddy who arrives off the ferry at Dover, or risk being fined millions, and millions of pounds.

:mad:

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I wish I could say I had good neighbours, but I would be lying if I did. I have enough worries looking after my mother without having to deal with their antics.

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Genuinely sorry to read that.

Everyone's home should be there sanctuary.

Having bad neighbours is far worse than having neighbours who just keep themselves to themselves.

Has no one been able to help you?

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

Just looked up the story, how awful what's happened to them, but there's always 2 sides to a story & the media are known to exaggerate stories. It mentions 'their friends' in the couple of reports I read, what where their friends doing to try & help I wonder. I hope my comments don't come across harsh as I think no-one should live this way in this day & age. As for being neighbourly I think I am supplied & fitted some sockets free of charge for a young lady with a baby across the road, & pass on my little boys clothes to her. Have lent neighbours items, and looked after another's cats on many occasions. Also when I spray weedkiller at the small 'garden' at the front of my house, I do the neighbours too.

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

Very sad and scary but a sign of the times...the Government and the media tell us that those on any benifit are living the life of riley and are to blame for everything..and some people on here believe it to be...how can this British couple be left to live on £57 a week?

Poor UK couple Mark & Helen Mullins commit suicide, live off £57.50 a week - What's On Sanya

"A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: 'The couple in question had been receiving weekly benefits from the department since February 2010 - these included money for disability and caring responsibilities as well as out of work support."...so much for "support" from this destructive Government....R.I.P

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

Crass.

To try and spin some party political advantage out of this tragedy.

Similarly heartbreaking incidents to this happened before May 2010, don't you know?

Or don't they count, if we had a Labour government at the time?

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

used to be n owd fella next door to us, we used to keep n eye on him,his daughter used to come n do all his shopping which is a good thing to me, he was deafer n me n used to watch telly at night full volume,which was a drag cos paris goes to bed early, but earplugs cured that,telly always went off around 11-30, one night was still blasting away at 1-00, despite us ringing him n knocking etc, so we called police fearing the worst,:eek: they came n came through our house to gain acess round the back, sadly they knocked on our front door about 15 mins later,to tell us he had croaked,:( so if yeh got owd uns next or around yeh, please keep n eye on em.

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

Sad story ... fortunately, I have great neighbours.

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

I have just PMd you but I will also post here. We had good neighbours until this lot moved in 10 years ago. A number of things have happened over the last few years which I might expand on at a later date. We just want to get on with our lives and mind our own business. It just goes to show the impact it can have when relations with neighbours breaks down. Anyway, thanks for your post. I really appreciate it. Oh, and I would like to apologise for my post in the boredom thread. I was only joking, but in black and white I don't think it came out right. (Joke telling was never my forte!) I always find your posts lively and interesting.

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

What party spin?... iI don't know but maybe similar tragedies did happen pre 2010 but does that mean it's ok now?.. can anyone doubt that those on any benifits have not been targeted as "scroungers" by this government?... I'm saying that it's easy for the media to report the scroungers but not to quick for them to report on the millions living in the economic misery this government are creating... and this poor couple are only the tip of the iceberg.

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

Its a wonder how two people can fall into so much despair that they both commit suicide together. The conversations they must of had together leading up to the decision to do it. Very sad indeed.

Why the small amount? Only other year or so there was a story in paper this family had 10 kids, they both on benefits, practically a mansion to live in and 95K A year(they were white before anybody plays the race card). So how can something like this happen?

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

this may be only the tip of the iceberg but we havent seen what theyve got ln store next;);)

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

As I said, I enjoy a little light-hearted banter. No need to apologise. Plus you gave as good as I get, and I went to bed smiling, thanks to our little boring ding-dong.

:D

Very often we don't know the person behind the username.

I hope somehow you and your mum get the peace you deserve.

I wish there was something more I could do to help.

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

That shows a lot of concern fer people.:rolleyes:

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Who's 'they'?

You going to use someone else's miserable death too, to score cheap political points, for the 'team' you happen to support?

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Yes..and when do we draw the line on cuts?..some cuts are costing lives.

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

Christ Ed n brother Davids online.:rolleyes:

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You should know who "they" are..you being a socialist :D

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

The Chuckle Sisters.

Pushmi-Pullyu.

To me, to you.

If Labour's only hope in Hyndburn is Scotland's Wee Jimmy Krankie, and cockney geezer Jim Davidson's younger class warrior brother, Lord help 'em.

:rolleyes:

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

At least show people a reason for the years they spent at school..give some hope of jobs they have been trained for..or is that to radical under this governemnt?

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Living in a seniors complex def. has it,s up side. Everybody knows everybody and are happy to help out to the point of being nosey but it sure beats the alternative.

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My 66 year old neighbour is a complete NIGHTMARE, he has me bathing his dogs, sweeping and mopping his house, polishing and hoovering for him, i know he can cope on his own, he's just a lazy bum and would rather get someone else to do it for him whilst he wanders about from town to town in his car...eee i don't know, the pensioners of today eh, they don't know their born ;)

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On a more serious note though, it is terrible what has happened to this couple, this shouldn't have been allowed to happen

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Should not be allowed to happen but will happen again..it is a sign of the times..maybe Garinda and Jaysay can sort it all out.. we live in hope:D

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Mancie, if the last government had not allowed so many people to come into the country.......there may have been a job for this man. And, if they had not given benefits to those coming in from other countries(benefits which they then send back to their own country to improve that country's economy) there may have been a bit more money to dole out to the really needy.

The welfare state was envisaged to help those in genuine need....not as a career option....who made it a career option.......well, I am sure you know the answer to that.
And before you go on and say this is a tory view, why don't you look at some of the other threads which criticise the current government.
I am for NO party...the only party I will vote for will be the one who can get us out of this unholy mess.


This thread was not originally about politics......it should not be about politics....it should be about caring. Looking out for those who live near us......especially those who are old or in need.

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And so we have to go back to the last government.. what is the point in having any government?... the last government are to blame for everything so let all the present MP's take a very nice salary and sit around doing nowt while over a million school leavers do the same without any income?

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

:rofl38:

How long ya known him?

:D

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

Ermmmm, 35 years, 9 months and 8 days

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

:p

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

I can't really comment on the first paragraph, as it is stuff that happened after I left. But ... the thread is about politics; the couple felt abandoned by social services, not by their neighbours. For one reason or another, some folks just fall through the cracks in a fallible system ... Or the "system", being based on "numbers" rather than on compassion, and being operated by routinized civil servants didn't work in this case. These isolated cases happen. And when they do, they make headlines. But, they are not the norm.

And I can't agree that your "welfare system was envisaged to help those in need." It was fought for by the people. It was based on the belief that in a wealthy country, no one should be left behind ... there should be pensions, free education, unemployment insurance, etc. And to say that welfare is a "career option" is, in most cases, wrong. When govts. routinely spend millions bailing out corporations, giving them tax breaks, allowing them to avoid taxes in offshore havens, it is wrong to put all the blame on the poor ... it is the corporate welfare bums who drain the coffers of the state. And when the crunch comes, who suffers?

Maybe the thread is about caring ... but neighbourliness, or lack of it, is difficult to consider in isolation .... and it's not something you can legislate or enforce.

This is a sad case, no doubt about it. But I don't see it as evidence of a massive moral decline. It's an isolated incident.

And here's a question, more or less rhetorical: How many of you would have allowed this to happen to you and to your family? How many of you would have thrown in the towel, whatever the circumstances?

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

Well Eric, I take your point...in the end everything does boil down to politics.......but the thread was about neighbourliness first and foremost....the story about the couple who committed suicide was (I think) there for illustration.

As for benefits being a career option..which you don't think it is, then why have we got families where no-one works? Where three generations have lived without contributing to the NI system....the only way they pay any tax is on the stuff they buy.

I take your point about large companies evading their responsibilities...and this is wrong too. governments bail out companies in the hope of saving jobs...and it doesn't happen often. The banks were a diferent ball game.

I don't blame the poor for being poor, (i have been there - read my blogs) but you do not have to remain poor.....and you have a responsibility to try and do something for yourself......no-one has a right to live off the state forever.

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My neighbours have change quite a lot over the last few years there's only my immediate neighbour across who I know, the two upstairs are new and I've never met, but the one who lived in one of the upstairs flats previously was a pain in the backside, was an alcy and made out lives a misery for 18 months

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times were tough when I was growing up...we had no welfare...what there was, was means tested.....and we didn't qualify for anything other than orange juice, cod liver oil and later we did get free school dinners.


I'm still here. We managed by not having things that we could not afford.
that has always been my lifes financial rule...if you can't afford you can't have it...work until you have made the money to pay for it.
In essence, this is what governments have failed to do.

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

My post was not intended to be political

That can be left to others.

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

I agree ... And if govts. saved in the good times, so that they had funds for the bad, things would be better. But no: when times are good, spend, spend, spend. And when times are bad, there's nothing left to help ease the economic pain.

And times were tough back in our day; but as the saying goes: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going". ;)

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

Eric, some of what you say, I take.

Though without wishing to appear too much like a copywriter for the Daily Mail, on some points you're wrong.

In recent years we have had a situation in which people chose to live on state funded benefits, because it meant they were better off doing that, than working for a living. For this, the system was wrong. Not necessarily the people who took advantage of the situation, who wanted as much money as possible, to fund their family's living costs.

The jobs some people are no longer prepared to do, are now being done by eastern Europeans. Who can work here, thanks to the E.U.'s open borders policy.

State benefits should be there for people, who through no fault of their own, need them. They should not be an option, a choice. Which for some, it was. Long term we can't afford that option as a society.

This programme showed people helped back into the jobs market, who then decided they couldn't afford the loss in income, so who chose to go back to living off benefits.

'Yvette, who, with four kids, finds that a minimum wage from Poundland is no match for the benefits she was getting before. Even Hayley doesn't blame Yvette for quitting, which is out of character for Hayley, and means that there must be something wrong with the system.'
Benefit Busters | Last night's TV | Television & radio | The Guardian

Benefit Busters | Single Mothers | Channel 4 - YouTube

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

We had a lovely cache of gold as a buffer against the bad times.....a bit like my Ma's Rainy day tin.(Only to be dipped into in the direst of dire emergencies) Things were good in this land...but we had a daft Chancellor who had the idea to sell off the gold reserve...that stuff in the governments rainy day tin.
Now let me think for a minute...who was it?
Ah, yes it is coming back to me now.......Gordon Brown.......and which party did he belong to?....er, that would be the Labour party then......or should I perhaps clarify that and call them New Labour.....they certainly weren't the socialist of days gone by...they were as close as it is possible to be, to a tory without actually having that name.
But they bamboozled lots and lots of the true Labour supporters....those who only look at the colour of the rosette.

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

I still think the post is being hijacked by peoples political ideas this was not intended.

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Think of it as virtual neighbours, just having a little natter, over the garden fence.

;)

neighbours theme 1989 - YouTube

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

Yes it is,Claytonx...but that is sometimes how it goes........my post, which you quoted was only to answer what Eric had said.
It was Mancie who started the political stuff...yes, name and blame!

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

The conversation may stop on the subject of the relatively mild weather.

Or it might veer off slightly.

Especially if her at No. 6, the one with more front than Blackpool, has just hung out her non-liberty bodice type underwear on the line.

;)

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Well im a single mum, i went back to work 3 days a week, as with the child tax credit & working tax credit I receive (the system I have paid into for 23 years) I wouldn't be any better off working 5 days a week, so whats the point of working an extra 2 days for nowt, I get to spend time with my little boy. But how people can live off £67.00 per week benefits is beyond me, I spend that on shopping each week.

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

I'm certainly not going to blame anyone for getting the best deal for their family.

It's not the people who are in the wrong.

It's consecutive governments, who take that dubious honour.

Re: Are we close to neighbours
 

I see what you mean ... maybe it does seem more than a little insensitive to launch into a political debate over what appears to be a personal tragedy, and a lack of neighbourliness. But, unfortunately, what happened has a strong, wider social and political content. In any discussion on the subject, "politics" is inevitable.

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As ever:mad:

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What I don't get with this story (and yes I have read the link) is that they weren't claiming everything they could have. This is more down to someone somewhere advising them incorrectly and nothing to do with a couple having to live on £57.00 per week as that is even below a single person's JSA entitlement of £67.50 unless they were paying something else direct from benefit.

If it's a couple where one is claiming JSA (not the other) then the rate is £105.95.

As there seems to be an issue regarding the ladies literacy and mental health issues it wouldn't surprise me to find out she was on benefits (as it seems to imply at bottom of the news story) but it was being paid into an account she wasn't aware of.

So really it's about someone looking out for them I agree, but if they don't accept help then they are the hardest to help as I know only to well in my job.

Really really sad story that should never happen but I agree it probably will happen again

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I don't think we've got the whole story on this aweful tragedy.
Quote-' the DWP said the couple were recieving weekly benefits from the department since Feb 2010- these included money for disability and caring responsabilities as well as out of work support'. That's got to be more than £57 per week.Where is the whole story?
As for the careing neighbours and friends- with friends and neighbours like that who needs enemies? They obviously knew something was wrong and did nothing positive about it.

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They wouldn't have been eligable to a joint claim to JSA as she would have to have been actively seeking work herself, and due to her health problems she probably wasn't looking for work. Why she wasn't claiming ESA (no1 can claim Incapacity Benefit anymore) is anyone's guess, again why wasn't she getting DLA, her husband could have then got Income support & carers allowance. The report speaks rubbish in saying she had to be diagnosed with a disorder to claim benefits. It seems more likely that they were frightened to approach her GP for the help needed (i.e to get a medical certificate) to claim the correct benefits as they feared she would have been put into care. All round its a sorry state of affairs, but as I said in earlier post, there's always two sides to every story.

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Well I think the further north you go the friendlier people become, I can remember I uncle who settled in Stanmore Middlesex after the war and I can remember him telling my mother that he had only just got to know his next door neighbour after 15 years and that, although he liked a drink, he stopped going to the local pub because he could stand at the bar for an hour and not one person would engage in a conversation with him, including the barman. In the old days, 50s and 60s, people round here walked in and out of everybody's home, people left their front doors unlocked when the went to the corner shop, and everybody helped one another, don't think that happens today to the same extent, but I do know one think, the number of people, who know my circumstance, who have offered help anytime day or night, is quite remarkable really and is very reassuring in deed, I can't thank you enough

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You are to be applauded and congratulated. You are out there helping yourself. Ok, you get some benefits...but you have paid into the system and will do again(probably are doing at the moment).
My gripe is with those who expect the government to do everything......who want to live like the rest of us who pay our way in society(have holidays, TV's etc), but do not want to work for what they get.
The other slice of society who get my goat, are those who come into the country, have paid not a bean into the communal pot, but want us to look after their health, give them homes, child benefit and something to live on.
Other countries don't do it and that is why they come here.
The welfare system is a magnet to them.

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I agree with you to a certain extent but this is where the job centre has failed, you can claim couple rate income related jsa even if the partner is not able to work which they have clearly stated she is not able to. If he was on contributory based jsa then the couple rate would come from a top up of income based jsa and yes you are correct in saying it is not a requirement to have a diagnosed illness to be able to get esa. Many people don't claim DLA as they don't really know about it and the carer's allowan.ce would have only kicked in if she got mid rate care.

TBH in all the couple should have been getting esa claimed for her and a claim for DLA if she got mid rate care then he could claim carer's allowance which would have meant he would have been entitled to the income support top up and not required to look for work as he would be deemed as a carer!