Can we be good neighbours without interfering in other peoples' lives?

Mostly, I worry about the increasing erosion of our privacy, as the government builds its databases and deploys its CCTV cameras, but a story I heard recently made me look again at the flip side of this debate.

One of our most recent site subscribers, Angelus, tried to alert both a relevant charity and local social services about an elderly man, living alone in worryingly primitive conditions. They were told that no one would intervene, as this would be interfering with his right to live as he chose. Neighbours continued to worry about him, and after a period of months they reached a situation where emergency services had to be involved: police broke down his front door to find him collapsed from hypothermia, with neither heating, hot water, nor means to make a hot meal or drink.

This story - unlike some other, similar ones - has a happy ending: after a spell in hospital (during which social services cleaned up and made habitable his house) this man is now back at home, with the crucial addition of some support in the form of a daily phone call from Angelus, to have a chat and make sure he is ok, and regular visits from social services.

So where do we draw the line? I certainly don't want anyone else telling me how I should live my life, but I would like to think that, if my neighbours were that worried about me, someone would feel emboldened to take action some time before I was an emergency case. There must be many people who live alone and have no idea what services might be there to help them keep their independence, or how to access them. Perhaps this is part of what the Conservatives have in mind with their Big Society idea; certainly, it would be nice to think that neighbourliness might become a virtue again, rather than a synonym for nosiness.

What do you think? Add your comments and share your ideas with other readers!