WALKING along the street close to my home on Saturday night I heard a familiar voice. "Get OUT of the bath!" it boomed "STOP splashing me! Pick up that wet flannel!"

It was unmistakable: my husband, in the middle of one our nightly battles to get the children ready for bed.

It is one thing hearing this in our house, but quite another to be party to it several hundred yards away in the street, so clearly audible to at least a dozen other homes.

I felt a pang of guilt. I'm renowned for my views on noisy neighbours - it is my number one bugbear.

For years, ever since I experienced life next door to an insomniac who played pinball up against our bedroom wall, I have been extremely sensitive to noise.

A plane will fly over our house in the early hours and I will wake believing it is someone vacuuming next door. A magpie will chatter on the roof and I will be convinced it is a neighbour messing about with a hammer drill. Someone will drive past in a car with the radio blaring and for a few panicky moments I will assume that a wild party is starting next door.

Other people's noise sets my teeth on edge. But, I have to admit, the noise we make in our far-from-peaceful home probably has the same effect upon other people.

I don't flinch when my children and their friends spend all afternoon in the garden screaming. But if someone four houses away has a few high-spirited friends round for a barbecue, that's irritating noise.

My husband uses his Black & Decker to put up some shelves - that's no problem. Next door do the same and before long I'm tutting: "How long is that racket going to carry on?"

We have a family argument - that's life. But I'm sure if I heard the same from next door (I never do, they're very civilised) I'd be straight on the phone to environmental services.

Other people's noise always seems far worse than our own. But often it isn't. It's a control thing. If you can't regulate it, you don't like being party to it.

At times we may have Radio 4 on a little too loudly and I can hear it in the garden - so what? It's only conversation. But if the upbeat banter of a Radio 1 DJ and the accompanying chart music reaches my ears over neighbouring fences I start grumbling to myself.

In an ideal world most of us would probably choose to live in a detached house in its own grounds, where you can make as much noise as you like and never hear anyone else. I fancy a cottage deep in the country.

But even there noise disputes rage, like the recent one in Dorset over church bells being rung too early.

Living near others is all about give and take. Of course, there are some who are overloud and genuinely make neighbours' lives a misery. Some people can't exist without their weekend fix of power tools and fireworks.

And I firmly believe that wind chimes should be banned.

But most of us have, albeit reluctantly, got to accept other people's noise - and it is a lot easier to do if you stop and listen to your own.

Updated: 11:10 Monday, June 16, 2003