Richard Nye has a tongue in cheek look at the story of one local resident who chose freedom above the status quo
Meet Eleanor Albion, longtime resident of Europa Close. A good neighbourhood, she thought, when she first arrived. People seemed genuinely friendly, as if they had each other’s interests at heart.
Soon she was mixing in with the other mums, while her two boys played happily with all the kids in the close. She joined the Neighbourhood Watch and helped out at the annual street fair. She even fed the iguana at No 29 while its globetrotting owners were away.
Then, one day, she was urged to join the Residents Union (RU) – or Residents Community (RC), as they called it back then. This had been set up years before to prevent the larger families in the close from beating each other to a pulp. All members agreed to share resources and to exalt decisions of the Union Committee above the will of individual households.
Nobody really knew how the Committee was elected, or even who the heck they were, but everyone claimed to know someone who did – and, since these ‘someones’ were reliable sorts, there was general agreement that the Committee must be a jolly good thing. It certainly made plenty of rules – everything from curfews to curtains was covered – although each resident had the nominal right to veto anything too nasty.
Eleanor had her misgivings. Did they really need all these complex regulations? Couldn’t families just co-exist in peace and be responsible for their own decisions?
Even so, she agreed to join the RU upon condition of an opt-out from the Joint Households Deposit (JHD), whereby families agreed to pay their earnings into one vast communal account. She also refused to sign up to the Sexual Chapter – a controversial ‘pooling’ of conjugal rights designed to promote ‘equality of carnal flourishing’ among residents.
Still, life in the RU wasn’t easy. Eleanor loved her roses and hated having to throw them onto the fire. But, alas, year after year she exceeded her quota under the Common Horticultural Policy (CHP). Nor did she like coming home to find the weirdo from No 6 in her bath – but, given the rules governing the ‘free movement of neighbours’, there really wasn’t much she could do.
Eleanor’s mind was made up: she would have to leave the RU. While she still could. Of course, people tried to talk her out of it. She was a fool, they said; a bigoted misanthrope; perfidious Albion. No one in the close would talk to her, they warned. Was she really so arrogant as to think that she could manage on her own?
Wounded by the attacks, Eleanor wavered. She knew the accusations were unjust, but so numerous were the respectable people making them that she wondered – just for a moment – if perhaps her judgement was awry.
But then, in the nick of time, she remembered Lord Melbourne, Queen Victoria’s first prime minister. Looking back at one especially fierce debate, Melbourne famously observed:
“All the sensible men were on one side, and all the damned fools on the other. And, egad, Sir, the damned fools were right!”
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