LOOKING out for neighbours has always been the East Lancashire way.

Mum feeling ill? No problem, Mrs Smith next door would send round a pan of potato pie.

No one to look after the children for an hour after school? That’s easy, tell them to pop round to Aunty Jean’s, three doors down, who would offer them jam and bread to keep them going ’til tea time.

The question of how to celebrate the Queen’s Coronation was also easily answered. the whole street joined together and had a street party. The mums made sandwiches and baked cakes, while the menfolk organised all their tables and chairs in the middle of the road.

Such community spirit has been strong in our streets over many decades, born from a togetherness fostered by two world wars and bound by our traditional way of life.

Our close knit, terraced housing meant that families grew up knowing one another and fostered a kindness and regard for others that came naturally, without a second’s thought.

Not only did they live close together, but people worked together, too, often in the mills, mines and factories, so communities became, in effect, large ‘families’ all ready to give a helping hand when called on.

Housewives would gossip over the back yard wall, or as they donkey stoned the front step, while the men met up for dominos in the pub on the end of the street.

In his memoirs, George Booth, born in Brookhouse Lane in Blackburn in 1924, remembered the community spirit round the streets and cobbled alleys that were his playground as a youngster.

His father died when he was just six months old and his mother was left to bring him and his elder sister Elsie up on her own.

The family were poor — there was no gas oven, carpets, bath or any form of lighting in their two up and two down home, though it was just like millions of others.

Said George: “No one ever complained, we accepted things as they were. Everybody was in the same boat, and life went on.

“My memories of my childhood and that of my sister was one of great happiness and I recall how the people in our street were all very friendly, good neighbours.

“People seemed to laugh more readily than they do today, they made their own amusement and they concerned themselves with each other’s well being, yet not in an interfering way.

“Illness was quickly telegraphed the entire length of the street and people responded, as they did with death which was the ever-present visitor.”

As children, if the weather permitted, George and Elsie, lived every day outside, and it was the same in every household, day or night, summer or winter.

“Mother never asked us where we were going or who we were going with, she knew we would come to no harm, with everyone looking out for everyone else.”

He continued: “How well I remember our next door neighbours, an elderly couple called Mr and Mrs Barlow and their daughter Dora, who had wages coming in to the house.

“They were very kind, for each and every Monday, Mrs Barlow would pass over the back yard wall the carcass from their weekend chicken and the rich pickings were a welcome supplement to the potato stew we normally had.”

David Peat, former chief executive of NHS East Lancashire, was born in Rossendale Hospital in the first year of the National Health Service.

The family lived at Crowtrees on the Haslingden Grane Road, in a tied house, as his father worked for the Irwell Valley Water Board after the Second World War.

When he changed jobs in 1952 the family moved to the outskirts of Haslingden/Rawtenstall to a hamlet with only four or five houses and two farms.

Said David: “It was a tightly knit community and my first recollection of neighbours was the Queen’s Coronation. We had the first television, a 12-inch screen Pye set, rented from Relayvision in Haslingden and all the neighbours came in to watch.

“These neighbours also provided my first childcare, when my mother returned to work.

“In summer, we all joined in the annual hay making, with school friends from town joining in and afterwards we played football, kids versus parents, in the fields.”

He added: “Every November we had a large bonfire, burning all the farm and domestic rubbish; we roasted potatoes and the mothers would make treacle toffee to share “At weekends we would usually all gather together in the farmhouse; I remember having one of the first hoola hoops, around 1960 and both the parents and children would all be ‘hoolahooping’ away.

“I also remember going to the parish church and joined the youth club, but as well as enjoying records and table tennis, we also visited elderly people, who appreciated a chat with the younger generation.”