We used to call him the Scarecrow, for when he ventured out onto the street, or into his wilderness of a garden, he always wore the same clothes; a shabby, old-fashioned black suit, faded striped shirt with a Grandad collar and wrinkled, well-worn brogue shoes. Thinning, white hair topped a long, flabby-cheeked face, containing a long, beaky nose with coarse hairs growing out of the nostrils and a bristly chin.

We told our children not to go up to the house, and they would peddle, scoot or walk faster across his section of pavement. We would talk about the inhabitant of Number 35 in hushed, scornful tones and complain how his dilapidated house brought the neighbourhood down.

I was a stay-at-home mum in those days. I had long since given up my job in Social Work when I became pregnant with my first, not altogether reluctantly, for every week I would encounter a situation that would leave another crack in my heart, and my husband had said I had done enough.

But now my youngest had just started full-time school, and my days from nine to three were suddenly empty. I tried to fill the time with redecorating my house, but after three rooms completely changed, I grew weary of the paintbrush and put it down, resolving that a proper decorator could pick it up again.

One morning, my front door bell rang while I was in the bedroom. I pressed my nose to the window glass in time to see a postman retreating back into his red Royal Mail van, starting up the engine and hastily driving away. I cursed that postman. Whatever he had just delivered was obviously too big to go through the letterbox, and it probably required a signature, but he had just dumped it outside.

Already deciding the wording of my letter of complaint to the Post Office, I stomped down the stairs and yanked open my door. There it was, a brown-wrapped parcel, leaning against my porch post.

I cursed again when I saw the address label. It wasn't even for me. It was addressed to a Mr Albert Mott at Number 35: the Scarecrow. That was the first time I knew his name.

I grabbed my keys from the hall table and pulled the door shut behind me. Parcel in hand, I walked the few yards to Number 35.

Pushing open the wooden gate that squealed on its hinges, I practically tiptoed up the path. Bending down, I placed the parcel against the doorstep, took a feeble hold of the lion head knocker and gave a short tap. The deed done, I turned to leave.

I halted when I heard his front door open. The Scarecrow's face peered out at me.

'There's a parcel for you,' I said hurriedly, pointing at his feet. 'It was delivered to me by mistake.'

'Huh?' the Scarecrow grunted.

'A parcel,' I repeated loudly, thinking that he was probably deaf. To prove the truth of my statement, I stooped and picked the parcel up, holding it out before me. 'See?'

'Come in,' he said, leaving the door to open slowly as he shuffled up his hallway.

I opened my mouth to protest, but only a squeak came forth. He had reached the kitchen by the time I decided I couldn't just walk away and leave his front door open. I entered and followed.

'You want tea?' he asked gruffly as I stepped onto the dirty linoleum floor. The kitchen was a tip, not just untidy but unclean. There was no way I was having a cup of tea in a place like that.

'No, thank you,' I said, leaning into the room and putting the parcel onto the worktop. 'I only came to give you the post.'

He grunted again, pulling out from the table a wobbly metal chair, crumbling foam falling out from rips in the plastic seat. He used his hand to dust it off and then pointed for me to sit.

I suppose that at this point, I should have insisted that I was leaving, but there had been something in the way he had asked if I wanted tea that made me stop. Something hopeful, I thought. So I sat down and even gave him a smile.

He placed a cup and saucer of tea in front of me (my refusal obviously having gone unheeded), and took a seat opposite. The cup and saucer were surprisingly clean, without chips or cracks and the pattern was elegant and bright. He had given me his best china. I felt a trickle of shame. The tea looked good too; strong, just how I liked it. So often when visiting, I would be given tea weak and sweet.

'Thank you,' I said, raising the cup to my lips.

He peered at me. 'Is it alright?'

'Lovely,' I confirmed.

'Good,' he said with relief, taking a slurp from the enamelled mug he seemed to prefer. 'Only I don't get many visitors.'

'No,' I replied tactfully.

'You're the one with those little kiddies, aren't you?'

'Yes,' I said, in some surprise at the gentle term. 'My little monsters.'

'Oh, now, don't call 'em that,' he waggled a thick, crabbed finger at me reprovingly. 'You'll miss 'em when they've grown up and gone.'

'I suppose I will. Do you have any children?'

He shook his head. 'Wish I did. They might come and see me, from time to time.'

'I don't see you out much.’

'I don't go out much at all, my dear,' he said, raising watery blue eyes to mine. 'Not since I lost my wife.'

'Oh. When was that?'

'Getting on for ten years now,' he said sadly. 'I go out early, that's probably why you haven't seen me. There's a little grocery shop just down the road. They open about seven. Muggers don't get up that early in the morning.'

My cup clattered in my saucer. 'Is that why you don't go out? You're frightened to?'

He nodded, his bottom lip sucked in between his yellow teeth. 'They got my wife.'

I gave him an enquiring look, and he explained.

'We never carried much money, just enough to get what we needed. Well, we went out one day to get some food, and we took a short cut coming home, 'cause she was complaining her legs were hurting her. A mugger jumped out at us and demanded our money.'

I shook my head in disgust and he gave me a wan smile.

'Elsie refused. Oh, she was a right terror when she wanted to be. I remember, her mother telling me about her during the Blitz, how she stood out in the middle of the street and dared the Luftwaffe to do their worst.' He laughed at the memory. 'I can see her now, clutching her bag to her chest and telling him what he could go and do with himself. I wanted her to just give it to him; it was only a handbag, it was nothing. But before I could say or do anything, he pushed her and she fell to the ground. Then he pushed me aside, I fell over and he took her bag and run off.' I saw him blink away tears. 'She had a heart attack, right there at my feet.'

I felt another crack across my heart. I reached across the table and placed my hand over his. He looked at me with something like surprise, and I wondered how long it had been since this poor old man had been shown any kindness.

'Do you have any pictures of your wife?' I asked. 'I should like to see her.'

'In the living-room,' he said, getting up and shuffling through the doorway. I followed. 'There she is.' He held out a photo frame holding a sepia coloured wedding picture. 'She was a looker.'

I took it from him and studied the two young smiling people. She had indeed been a looker, and so had he. What a change time can bring, I thought. The phrase 'matinee idol' crept into my head as I looked at the young Albert Mott, and I grinned.

'You weren't so bad yourself.'

'That's what she used to say,' he said. 'Said I was better looking than Valentino.' He placed the frame back on the mantelpiece.

I looked around the living-room. It was as dirty and untidy as the kitchen.

'Mr Mott, don't you think it would be better if you had a tidy up?'

He glanced around his living-room as if seeing it for the first time. 'Oh, yes. It has gone to seed a bit, hasn't it?' He shrugged, avoiding my eyes. 'I just don't seem to have the energy these days. Elsie kept this place spotless.'

'I used to work in Social Care, Mr Mott. If you have trouble managing on your own, someone can be sent in to help you.'

He shook his head, his flabby cheeks wobbling. 'I don't want strangers in my house.'

'Well, I was a stranger until twenty minutes ago,' I pointed out, touching his arm awkwardly. 'I hope you don't think I'm interfering, but I don't like to see anyone living like this.'

What a horrible way to end up, I thought with a shiver. He said nothing, and I was sure I had hurt him. 'I can come in and help you, if you like.'

As soon as I said those words, I knew I might have reason to regret it. I had left the Social Work because I got too involved, and here I was, doing it again, and not even getting paid for my trouble. My husband always said I was a soft touch, and it would be a big undertaking if the rest of the house was in as bad a state as what I had already seen. I waited, almost hoping he would refuse my offer.

'Would you?' he asked, wide-eyed with surprise and pleasure, and I knew that I had been right. He had been such a lonely man for such a long time; anything I could do to amend that situation was reward enough.

'Of course. I'm free from 9 til 3 these days.'

And that was how it started, with him and me cleaning up his house. It was a huge job. The rest of the house was as bad as I feared, and it took over two weeks, but we got there in the end.

When the last bin bag was tied up and thrown out the front, he looked at me as if he expected never to see me again. I was having none of that. So I asked him to walk with me when I went to collect my children from school.

After a few weeks of that, I told him I was taking him out shopping and that he was going to buy himself some new clothes. He protested that he had no money, but I shook his coffee tin (the one that housed about five hundred pound) at him and he meekly agreed, letting me pick out trousers and shirts for him with an indulgent smile.

Eventually, he grew braver and began to go out by himself. He joined a local social club for people of his own age, and made some good friends. In short, he began to live again.

And in a different way, so did I. Helping him made me realise what I had been missing. So I went back to work. I longed to help people again, no matter how many cracks in my heart it made.

I no longer curse postmen. If it hadn't been for that wrong delivery, Albert would still be alone and unhappy at Number 35, and my neighbours and I would still call him by that cruel nickname, the Scarecrow. No one calls him that anymore.