Be a Good Neighbour

An animation stuffed full of canine cracks promotes the Home Office Good Neighbour scheme in the 1970s.

Is your neighbourhood going to the dogs? This campaign film guarantees to help dispense ruff justice to cat burglars with swagger. South Shields artist Sheila Graber’s witty animation brims with canine quips. Commissioned by Northumbria Police, the film was made to promote the crime-busting Home Office Good Neighbour scheme, rolled out in Britain in 1977.

Still an amateur animator at the time, this was Sheila Graber’s first paid commission, requested after a policeman watched her award-winning 12 Days of Christmas on BBC Look North in 1975. She later gained international recognition for her animations of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, commissioned by Nicole Jouve of Interama, agent for The Magic Roundabout. Graber went on to win a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Royal Television Society in 2004.