Talking over the palings

I was in a community centre the other day chatting with residents about some of the images they had brought for the local website they are developing. As soon as this one came up they all said: 'talking over the palings'.

The picture seems to have encapsulated a historically intense neighbourliness, and the phrase was its widely-accepted shorthand.

One of the residents said: the man in the background, that's Mr Bernard, he was from London, such a nice man.

The picture dates from about 1950. I was born a few years later and grew up in the sixties, and I remember a lot of fences like this and, later, chain link fences. In many cases these would have replaced iron fences and gates, where the iron had been taken and used for armaments during the war.

 

Comments

[Ruth C]

This is exactly what we had on our post-war council estate. Never heard them referred to as palings in my neck of the woods- Coventry. We called them fences but once people started to buy the houses, 'proper' fences started to go up to make gardens more private. You used to be able to chat easily with these, see what your neighbours were hanging on their washing lines etc. You could see a long way up the street!
I like the pic. May try to dig out some old pics of my own to send over.

Ruth

[Kevin Harris]

Thanks Ruth - Coventry was heavily bombed, so were the homes in your street built post-war? The ones in this pic look like old homes with replacement or new fencing. I like the idea that permeable back garden borders contributed to an extended community space, albeit temporary.
When I was a kid we got on fine for many years with our elderly neighbours, separated by a permeable fence. But when they died, anticipating new neighbours, my parents thought the right thing to do was to build a wall at the back. I suppose you don't want to be feeling you need to do that after they've moved in, but still I never really understood that.
k