[Anke]

Yes Teesside at night was something else.... worked there in 90s...
Although I have to say driving into Edinburgh at night coming over Soutra is quite a wonderful sight too... lights and all, across the Firth of Forth into Fife.
What I don't like is that orange glow, it just makes everyone looking ill....
And as far as I know in Germany, in the smaller cities and villages the street lights are turned off (or turned down to only every second one) after 11pm!

[happygolucky]

We first rented in a little farm cottage a long way from any town and boy that was dark at night...I loved it...BUT, if you have to walk around its good to have SOME street lights, however I do think people and gangs tend to hang around lit areas, without street lights they may well go home  .......its spooky without......
I look around the house and so many electrical things have standby lights on, why is that, there used to be just on or off!!! I try to turn off the electric sockets when any of our rooms are not being used.....it all adds up.
We do use far too much power of all kinds......we are our own worse enemies!!!

[FiB]

Find the lights of the town a bit scary and "odd" feeling now ...... feels like we have created a really strange world.


Glad my children are growing up knowing what "dark" really is. Mind you my daughter did ask a couple of years ago ...... "What's that called? .....   twas a street light .  Perhaps we need to get out a bit more 

   love it. reminds me of my nephew visiting an elderly friend house and looking between her and her ironing board (which was leaning against the wall) in awe and saying, "wow, a surf board"!  He was about 8 and my sister was embarrased!  (But we come from a long line of non -ironers).  Children do bring a great perspective on your life dont they!!!  Love the stary pic bucketman  

[Ina]

There's a footpath along the front of my house, just outside my bedroom window, which is lit up all night. Now, this is a very peaceful area, where people leave kids' toys, garden furniture etc out all night, and where the worst that has happened since I moved here almost 4 years ago is somebody having a bit of music on in the evening... Not even loud, or all night. So why do we need lights on all the time? (It means that when I have to get up at night to go to the loo, I don't need a light...)

Of course, maybe the area is so peaceful because of all the lights. Who knows?

It reminds me of a newspaper article my father once showed me. It was from when they first introduced street lighting in German cities; 100 years ago or so? The writer of the article predicted an increase in night time crime and immoral behaviour - because thieves and muggers would now be able to see during the dark hours, too... No idea whether any research was ever done to find out if this proved to be true. I've certainly always felt safer in the dark countryside than in a well-lit city.

[happygolucky]

I wonder if lighting has created more crime too...although some new towns and estates are very very badly designed, lots of alleys and short cuts between blocks of houses, they are spooky, placed in wellingborough and milton Keynes......as a child I grew up in a tiny village that's not tiny now, there was a short cut to the local big Mental Hospital, my mum worked there, also that path had a graveyard one side and a park the other, it was Flasher paradise then, I wonder what it's like now

[Lesley Silvester]

When I lived in a village on Isle of Arran there was talk of installing street lightling.  There were a few lights donw near the ferry terminal but none through the village.  Lots of us contacted the council with our views and they didn't instal street lighting.  If I cycled through the village after dark, I simply went along the white line so I kept on the road and not over the drop onto the beach.  If a car approached, I could see its lights in plenty of time to get over to the edge and wait.

Often walked back from a friend's at midnight across the golf course and a field.  No problem even when very dark.  I found the sycamore tree in our garden on the skyline and headed towards it (okI did fall in a bunker a couple of times) and over the style at the bottom of the tree.  Occasionally I remembered to take a torch.