Villagers show fantastic community spirit in search for missing Herefordshire woman (From Hereford Times)

Villagers show fantastic community spirit in search for missing Herefordshire woman

9:00am Thursday 26th January 2012 in Paul Rogers Blog By Paul Rogers

SINCE working at the Hereford Times, I have covered countless amount of missing people stories, with the large amount thankfully being found quickly.

However, sadly Alethea Taylor is still missing a week after she was last seen by her husband leaving her Orleton home.

The emergency services have done everything to find her, with dog handlers, the police helicopter, the Severn Area Rescue Association (SARA) and Longtown Mountain Rescue Team all being called out to scour a large rural area.

But it is the role that more than 100 villagers have done to try and find Mrs Taylor that has really impressed everyone.

Every day during the past week, they have met up at the village hall to join in the search in the hope that they can find something that will help reunite Mrs Taylor with her family.

She is well known in Orleton and has been described as a jolly person who is part of everyday life in the village.

That is why the locals wanted to help as something like that affects them all.

It is great to see that community spirit is still alive and well when someone is in need of help and support.

All too often, we hear about stories about how people are ruining communities - you only have to see last year's riots to witness that - so it is humbling to see that there are still good people in our towns and villages who are willing to give up their day to try and find a neighbour.

I think that the way that society has changed means that we don't appreciate our neighbours as much as we used to.

I bet a lot of people would struggle to name five of their neighbours who live in their street and how many would actually stop to say hello to them?

A survey by Macmillan Cancer Support found that an average user on Facebook has 237 friends, but only two who they could turn to in a real crisis.

Our lives are so dominated by technology and social media these days that we spend most of our day communicating to friends over the internet or texting them.

Facebook was designed for people to get in touch with old friends, but I think it's gone too far the other way now in that people just add friends for the sake of it, even if they have only just met the person.

I admit I've done it myself.

You may start chatting to them for a bit, but it soon wears off and they just become another one of the countless amount of friends on Facebook that in reality are just acquantices.

I know I've got a good group of friends who I can turn to when I need them and I will do the same back, but sometimes it takes something like Alethea Taylor's disapperance to make you realise not to take your friends and neighbours for granted as one day you may need them in a crisis.

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