Love thy neighbour

UPFRONT:  HARRY LIVES next door to the house where my boyfriend grew up in Portadown. Barry lives across the road from us in Dublin 3. They've never met and chances are they never will, but they have much more in common than just their grey hair and kind twinkly eyes and the fact that, spookily, their names contain all the same letters except one.

You see Harry and Barry are both good neighbours. The kind of people some say are threatened with extinction, a breed disappearing fast as we become more selfish and more materialistic and more interested in the accumulation of DVD box sets we will never get around to watching than we are in the goodness of people.

The recession might reverse this trend of course, our priorities may start shifting, but when I braved town last Saturday in search of a roomy cardigan and some retro games for a children's birthday party, I saw no sign of a crisis. Not the catastrophe that's being peddled on the radio at any rate, the catastrophe that Joooooooooe Duffy, God help him, seems to be single-handedly trying to fix.

In fact, I nearly got my eyes poked out by a stampede of shoppers in the roomy cardie department of one shop, so keen are people to part with their money. It's as though people are buying more stuff in an increasingly manic fashion just to prove Brian "Patriot Games" Lenihan wrong.

When I'm not being elbowed in the ribs over bargain pieces of knitwear, I'm still inclined to believe that the goodness of people will always win out over, you know, stuff. When we moved into our street, weary refugees from the prohibitively expensive South Side, Barry was probably the first person we spoke to. Except the truth is he spoke to us first, because that is what good neighbours do. Welcoming us to our new address, he told us that he acts as a kind of "Keeper of the Keys" for some folk on the street and if we wanted he would keep our spare keys on a special hook in his hall too.

Not used to encountering real-life good neighbours outside the parameters of the dodgy daytime soap, we wondered at his motives. Personally, I can't think of anything worse than having to mind other people's keys and actually be at home and not wearing pyjamas or worrying about ketchup stains on the corner of your mouth when your hapless neighbour comes knocking at the door in search of them.

Further probing confirmed he kept the spares in case we ever got ourselves locked out and not so he could break in and help himself to, say our iPod or the growing collection of kidney bean tins at the back of our kitchen cupboards. In keeping the keys of his neighbours, Barry was simply, and I know it's a kind of an out-there concept for some of us, being good for goodness' sake.

We recently moved across the river while our house is being extended, but Barry's neighbourliness does not limit itself to us being in residence.

Every few days we get a text to alert us that he is holding some mail for us, letters or parcels too big to fit into our mailbox. He's made an arrangement with the postman who knows to bring the items over to Barry or his equally gracious wife Laura, who passes them on to us. He does this as though it's the most natural thing in the world. One day, when we were being perhaps a bit too effusive in our gratitude, he looked at us with a puzzled expression and said "but that's what neighbours are for".

Up North, Harry has been quietly doing good deeds for my boyfriend's family for years. There were six children living next door, so 25 years ago, child-free Harry set up a tuck shop in his house, buying treats and drinks from the local cash and carry and selling them at cost or sometimes giving them away to my boyfriend and his siblings to spare them the walk to the local shop. They took to calling his house "Harrads", and spent many happy childhood hours in his company.

A welder, Harry used to take three weeks off every year, and for the family next door his holidays signalled the start of summer. Harry played football and cricket with the children and one summer dug a hole in his garden just the right size for an empty can of beans, which made an excellent putting hole for golf. Digging holes in the lawn for recreational purposes would not have been countenanced in my boyfriend's immaculate garden, but things were different at Harry's, which became something of a second home.

The man never seems to age and continues in the same kindly uncle role to a new generation of my boyfriend's family. We're even hoping our own child might benefit from his kind care and attention in the years to come.

Let's face it, I'm not likely to become "Keeper of the Keys" any day soon - "Loser of the Keys" would be more like it - but people like this make me want to be a better neighbour myself. So this week, I just wanted to give a grateful salute to the Harrys and the Barrys, and the Lauras and the Mauras, doing their thing, no fanfare necessary, up and down the country. Despite everything they are still out there, performing selfless and generous everyday deeds without looking for anything in return. Recession or no recession, that's what neighbours are for.

PS

This week, Róisín is:

Congratulating . . . Kathleen Parkes (81, left, with presenter Niall Quinn) from Ballybough in Dublin, who was the winner of the Docklands Seniors Talent Showcase - she told "Christy" gags as a tribute to her heroine Maureen Potter. Kathleen can continue the celebrations on Monday at Dublin City Senior Citizens Day Out, when over 65s can avail of freebies including photos under Clery's clock, Eco Cabs around O'Connell Street and refreshments in the Lord Mayor's gaff on Dawson Street. There is also a senior citizen discount of 10 per cent off shops in the CHQ building. For details, contact Dermot Kirwan at Friends of the Elderly on 01-8731855.

Still laughing . . . about last week's sublime Late Late Show. I don't know what was more impressive - Pat Kenny's masterful handling of an interview with woeful burlesque troupe the Satanic Sluts, whose current high profile is entirely down to the presence of Georgina Baillie, the granddaughter of Andrew Sachs (Manuel from Fawlty Towers - que?), or his entirely justifiable ripping up of two precious Toy Show tickets after a surly competition winner from Cork turned her nose up at the prize live on air. With this classic TV moment he redeemed himself for mispronouncing Jerry Seinfeld's name on last year's Toy Show.