Neighbours...everybody needs good neighbours as the theme tune to the soap opera of the same name goes.

And at times of national excitement don't we know it.

Big events, such as the World Cup, can throw up some sticky situations for neighbours that require patience, understanding and compassion.

Qualities in short supply at 2am on a Monday morning, I've discovered.

I had the pleasure of being woken in the early hours by three separate drunken groups returning from a day's boozing and football.

But if I thought I had it bad, imagine the frustrations of the neighbours of jobless mother-of-13 Ellen Morris, who compared the news she was leaving to winning the lottery.

Families in Duckworth Street, Barrowford, could hardly contain their excitement after learning she was off.

In two years police received more than 200 complaints after she let her kids "run riot", dropping litter, trespassing and being generally abusive.

The 40-year-old Miss Morris has quite a record.

Last month she was given an ASBO; last year she was banned for drink-driving; earlier this year she was one of the first people in the country to be hit with the maximum 12-month parenting order after failing to send three of her kids to school; and she was fined £700 for 23 offences of playing loud music.

But the problem hasn't been solved just moved to Sutherland Street, Colne, where residents must be in a race to hammer "For Sale" signs into their lawns.

Over in a Blackburn court last week a man admitted a breach of the peace and was bound over in £100 to keep the peace.

What could have possessed a 55-year-old, otherwise sane, man to wake his street at 3am shouting abuse and shaking his garden fence? His neighbour apparently.

The two men had been locked in a battle, both spending hundreds of pounds on surveyors reports, on the life-and-death matter of a few centimetres of the boundary fence.

The moral of the story is that if you have a good neighbour, make sure you appreciate them.

Little things can go a long way. My neighbour took my rubbish out last week and that one small kind gesture made my day.

So this week why not find a way to show your neighbour you appreciate them.

As the song goes: "Good neighbours become good friends."