Back in 1970 I lived across the road from a young woman called June who suffered from depression and who was drinking rather heavily. I learned to weigh up every word before I spoke in case anything I said upset her further. This wasn't easy, as I'm not noted for diplomacy or for thinking before I speak and I'm often told that I talk too much. I know I do and I often say more than I intended and regret opening my mouth.
I admire people who never utter an unnecessary word, who speak only when they have something practical or important to say, but I know I could never be like that. I just chatter and chatter and I'm never stuck for a word.
Occasionally, I meet my match when some friends of my daughter Anna come to visit, and Anna will say: "Mum, I didn't know there was anyone in the world who could leave you unable to get a word in edgeways, but Pete and Julia leave you in the shade!" I have to agree that they are the only people I know who can outtalk me!
There are times, however, when I'm otherwise preoccupied and haven't the time or the inclination to chatter idly. June and her husband were friendly neighbours and would willingly lend a helping hand wherever it was needed. At that time I had a full-time job and a husband and house to look after so I had little time for socialising.
Late one afternoon I was digging in the garden, intent on finishing a section before going in to prepare the evening meal in time for my husband's homecoming. June came along with her little dog and stopped to talk, but that afternoon I was anxious to complete my task, so I kept on digging, dividing my attention between her and the job in hand.
Vaguely, I was aware that she desperately needed a listening ear but it wasn't convenient for me to give her my undivided attention just then, so she went away without pouring out her troubles. I knew that her father was dying of cancer and I suspected that she might be experiencing other difficulties at home, too.
Half an hour later, a man looked over the fence and told me he was from the MEB (Midlands Electricity Board). He asked if I knew where my neighbour was as he'd received an emergency call from her, but he couldn't get a reply when he rang the doorbell, although the dog inside was barking frantically.
I told him that she was definitely at home because I'd have seen her if she had gone out and, anyway, she wouldn't leave the dog alone in the house.
He went back to try again to get an answer, while I went in to prepare the evening meal, totally engrossed in what I was doing, and totally oblivious to anyone else's problems.
As well as possessing the gift of the gab, I have the ability to concentrate on what I'm doing, to the exclusion of all else, so much so that I won't even hear loud noises till my attention is drawn to them.
After we'd eaten the meal I had time to think and then I began to worry. I knew June hadn't gone out, but why was the dog barking and why had the electricity board received that emergency call only to be refused entry?
The thought kept flashing through my mind that something was amiss and that somehow it was connected to my not listening earlier on. It was now two hours since I'd spoken to the man and I was growing increasingly anxious.
Finally, I ran across to June's neighbour and asked him if he'd climb over his fence and try to gain access to the house. At first, he refused, saying I was making a mountain out of a molehill, but I'd sown the seeds of doubt in his mind so, after a while, he, too, began to worry.
He called me across and then he climbed over the fence and discovered that the little dog had chewed a hole through the French door, almost large enough to crawl through. What a clever, loyal, little friend to have!
By this time we were really alarmed and certain that something terrible had happened.
We decided to break in and there, to our horror, was June, lying unconscious on the bathroom floor with several empty bottles strewn around. I was surprised that we could act calmly and promptly, without panic. We seemed to go into automatic pilot! We summoned the doctor by phone and were careful not to touch anything. The doctor came at once but pronounced her dead.
Luckily, a few days earlier, I had read in my newspaper about a woman who had been found unconscious and drugged on a beach in America. She was pronounced dead and taken to a morgue, where, as she was being placed in a coffin a few days later, she startled the undertaker by suddenly opening her eyes. Imagine the undertaker's horror and shock! It doesn't bear thinking about.
I wonder if it happens often. What if that woman had already been nailed down in her coffin and no one ever found out? It's enough to give you nightmares!
The story was fresh in my memory so I told it to the doctor and I asked him to examine June more closely. He didn't seem too pleased that I was questioning his professional judgment but I persisted until he reluctantly agreed.
After a few moments I discerned a sudden flash of panic crossing his face, and then I knew he'd detected a slight sign of life. He summoned an ambulance and we gathered up the empty bottles to send to the hospital. Somehow, this intense activity and involvement was compensating for my earlier failure to listen.
June lay in a coma for several days and was then transferred to the psychiatric hospital where she remained for a period of treatment and convalescence. I visited her several times and tried to offer as much support as possible. She never seemed the same after that.
The whole sequence of events was extraordinary. That call to the electricity board was obviously a cry for help. I don't believe she really wanted to die but it was a very close shave.
The little dog was the real hero. It was his barking and his attempts to get out of the house that really raised the alarm and, had I not read about the case in America, I'd have accepted the doctor's word unquestioningly.
Perhaps some of us do have an invisible guardian angel looking after us.
We moved away to another area and then I heard that June and her husband had gone to America where she suffered a complete breakdown. Eventually, her husband brought her back home and left her in the local hospital because treatment was so astronomically expensive in the States.
I visited her there and she told me all that happened since we'd last met. By this time I was completely engrossed in my young daughter and had little time for anything that didn't involve her but, nevertheless, I found myself looking back to that afternoon in the garden and the subsequent drama.
Some weeks after I'd written this story I met another neighbour from that time and she told me that June did take her own life later on. The police discovered her body in the house where she died alone from an overdose. This saddened me. All those years have passed and I always thought that she had died from natural causes.
Through writing about the events of 32 years ago I have made this disturbing discovery and now I find myself tormented by fresh questions. Would it have made any difference if I had stopped working that day in the garden and invited her into my home for a cup of tea and then offered her a sympathetic ear?
Should we ever be so engrossed in our own lives that we don't have the time to stop and listen and show we care? How often we find ourselves uttering the words: "If only I had..." but it doesn't achieve anything to speculate like this about what might have been.
Depression has always been an alien concept to me but the longer I live; the more I'm aware of its existence in other people. Nowadays, I try to be more tuned in to the mood of those who are close to me so that, perhaps, the right word at the right time will be all that a person needs to prevent that final straw that would break them.
Perhaps if I could be more like the wise old owl in the oak tree, and tried to listen more and speak less, I'd do a lot more good.