Opinions? Do you love your neighbour?

Saturday 08 January 1994 19:02 EST
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SIR PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE, columnist: No, I don't. The relationship of neighbours is not of close friendship but of mutual assistance and I am delighted to be of such assistance as I can. The last thing you want from neighbours is intimate relations.

LUCINDA LAMBTON: I think it is absolutely vital and I do love my neighbours. It is the podium on which one stands in life. There is no warmer feeling to kindle the heart than good neighbourliness.

MAX CLIFFORD, publicist: It is extremely important to have good neighbours. There is always a social banter and we pop in for drinks. They respect my privacy, which you might think is a bit ironic.

KRISTIAN SCHMID, actor, Neighbours: I've never actually met them, but they smell nice - they're always cooking. The world created in Neighbours is a bit idealised. If you left your door open like the actors do, your dog would get raped and your telly stolen.

ROSALIND ORR, writer: My neighbour is a middle-aged man with a mental illness that makes him freeze like a statue for hours on end, often right outside my kitchen window. He is known as 'Fast Phil'. The social services ignore his plight and I must admit after eight years of it so do I. I feel very guilty that I don't love my neighbour - but at least I tolerate him.

PRUDENCE ROBERTSON, housewife and mother: I really adore my neighbours. When we moved in they gave us a rose bush and some salted bread as a good luck charm. We all stray into each others' houses - their mothers live in our house when they come to stay.

GARY, artist: They're murderous, absolutely horrendous. They've just taken out the supporting wall of the building so that the front wall sticks out by a foot and all the windows have blown out. While I was out trying to get re- housed they burgled me. They didn't think I was a good neighbour. This fat boy had me up against the wall once because he thought I was making too much noise. He told me to switch off some pumping machine he thought I had. I had to explain it wasn't a machine at all - I was just having sex.

(Photograph omitted)

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