What about your neighbour?

Where a story happens has a huge bearing on what value a reader gives to it. Everyone has their own "news horizons". The earnest young Guardian reader, for instance, might turn first to the foreign pages. Others will rush to scour the pages of their weekly paper looking for familiar names and faces. Years ago I was on a paper in Yorkshire. We asked a variety of readers to look at a map of our circulation area and circle on it the parts they were interested in. Lots of people circled the whole area, some, just bits. One old chap put a very small circle round his street, which made him the most difficult to please reader I have ever known (and believe me, he's been up against some stiff competition).
As someone who has lived in Stockport, Sheffield, Chester, Coventry, Bristol, Bradford, Nottingham, Derbyshire, Liverpool and Conwy, I have lots of circles of interest. My ears pricked up when I heard the words Cheadle Hulme on Radio Four yesterday morning.This Stockport suburb was where I grew up. As we reported in today's Daily Post, a mum and her three children had been found murdered in a house which happens to be just a few hundred yards from where I lived between the ages of three and 18.
The story left me with a sense of horror, shame and anger. Horror that someone could commit such a terrible crime - but shame and anger that the family had been dead for several weeks yet not one neighbour had ventured to find out what had happened to them until the stench of decay started to emanate from the house.
It's the kind of story where people say "it's such a quiet place, you don't expect that sort of thing to happen round here". I agree, and I wish it hadn't happened - not just in this sleepy suburb but anywhere.
But I also wish we lived in a world where people did give a bit more of a damn about their neighbours.