LOVE your neighbour - it's in your own interest as well as making for a peaceful life. Rubbish? Absolutely. Since starting kerbside rubbish collections, iron has entered the soul of those in charge of the Darlington system.

Rubbish must not be put out more than 24 hours before collection time; penalty, £50. Going on holiday? Have a word with the council to make special arrangements. Spectator is not inventing this in a fit of bank holiday euphoria; these facts were reported in the Durham edition of this newspaper last week.

There are 100,000 people in the town, approximately 50,000 households. Say 25pc are away for a fortnight during the six-week summer holiday, that's thousands of arrangements over a short period. If only half of all households go on holiday once a year, that's still a lot of arrangements lurking out there. And these arrangements will be made with a council which for eight weeks left behind a curtain rail put out by a disabled householder who had an arrangement to have his rubbish collected in the old fashioned way. Eventually, he got out his car and drove to the tip. Oh please, I have a headache coming on.

To return to where we started, get on good terms with your neighbour, and put out each other's rubbish when you're going away.

To track down errant householders putting out rubbish too early, council workers will search the bags for evidence of address. There are no addresses on tins of cat food and biscuit wrappings. There are addresses on waste paper, which should be heading for recycling, not landfill - disheartening for the guys who have to make us meet the recycling targets.

So, if you want your rubbish to be anonymous, remember to use the waste paper collection.

To keep the balance, Spectator has no sympathy with householders who last week, and maybe this, put out their bags on the wrong day. Bank holidays always cause disruption to the collection service. Easter has been scheduled since Christmas.

Uplifting

APPLAUSE broke out after the homily/sermon at Ampleforth abbey, near Helmsley, on Easter Sunday - after 20 children had "preached."

Abbot Timothy Wright had warned the 500-strong congregation that boys and girls would give them a homily - unrehearsed, but following a lot of work.

The sermon turned out to be interviews by the microphone-in-hand abbot coaxing the story of Christ's resurrection from about five of the primary school-age youngsters, who were sitting round the high altar.

One boy when asked to give a message to the chuckling congregation said: "Happy Easter!"

At the end, the key question put to the children was where was the risen Christ found nowadays. They replied: in church, in heaven, in the Bible and in each other.

Abbot Timothy seized on that final point. He added that it particularly involved people "we didn't like."

He declared the sermon "brilliant." And everyone applauded.

A colleague who has been visiting the abbey for 30 years said the Mass was the most uplifting he had attended there. This was not only because of the children's involvement, though that helped, he said.