We lived in Yorkshire when I was a child, and it was common practice for neighbours to have a spare key, for each other. To my knowledge nobody ever abused it by going into someones house univited, but oh how marvellous, when you had dropped/lost your key, or a parent knew they might be a little later home than a child, who was instructed to ask for the key from the neighbour if they arrived home first. (Safer than taking a key to school) We also told each other if we were going away and tended to water each others gardens.
Then we moved for my fathers job to Hertfordshire, where the neighbours were very pleasant but tended to keep themselves to themselves. There ,the houses were sort of on the diagonal, where the house across the road would look onto our garden and vice versa.
A wing commander and family lived there, polite but that was all. So ,when one day my mother saw the large Pickfords van , and the three men in brown coats and caps loading up, then sitting in the cab drinking tea etc., she only mentioned to my father that they were moving, and must have made a private sale as no board was up. Ten days later , they arrived home from their holiday, to an empty house, and my mother felt very embarassed that she could only tell the police very little about the men. The police said they must have some inside knowledge, and cheeky too, as the Pickfords van was stolen the night before!
Later as an adult, for a time I lived in a large terrace house, which had smallish front gardens , but had a private road round the back, which also led to lovely long gardens . Again neighbours had spare keys, but also told each other when we were going to be away, as nobody could be seen around the back from the road. When my son was at junior school and I was at home, I was happy to take in parcels , but sadly these days, I wouldnt want to do that, as there are so many home deliveries and I wouldnt like to be responsible now
