The Next Door Neighbour Incident……..

I tantalisingly mentioned this “incident” in my previous post and was asked by Mick from the Bloggocks to explain. So here goes…I’ll make it as concise as possible but it is a long story.

GMD is heavily involved in the village community. To date she is a member of the local Community Project, a Brownie Pack leader (Guides next), a governor at the local Primary School and also the local Junior School. She also works part time at the local leisure centre. The local parish council is inevitability. Up until the latter part of last year she was also Chair of the Village Carnival Committee. All of this takes up quite a lot of her time, as you can quite understand. The Carnival (now defunct) was a valiant effort to try and instil some sense of community into the village which is expanding in population by being one of the nearest places to Portsmouth for the current city-country migration trend that is occurring. It is also becoming a popular place for Londoners to move to (that is people like me, except I’ve been there 18 years). As more people move in its “village” status is diminished bit by bit. With this diminishment you get a free bonus of a complete lack of any sense of community or neighbourliness.

The Carnival consisted of the traditional float display followed by a funfair, exhibitions (clown, dogs, family sports day etc) and an evening party in a marquee all held in the local meadow (yes a genuine meadow!). Something for the village and its neighbouring villages to enjoy….you’d think …but that’s another moan.

Scene set.

The week leading up to the Carnival is traditionally a logistical nightmare, with floats being added, some dropping out, new attractions for the post-carnival display in the park, car parking arrangements, signposting, police liaison etc etc (that King of Siam keeps coming back). A very stressful time for the whole committee, but especially the Chair. On the day of the carnival we had people stopping outside the house to drop things off , collect things, including the children who were to be the Queen, King , Princess and Prince. We received a knock on the door at about 11:00. GMD answered expecting another carnival related delivery/collection. No, it was Hornblower’s wife – The Healer. Both of them are a bit weird. He was ousted from the Navy, but not for my suspicions (Roger the Cabin Boy was my immediate thought), but because he was a whistleblower for exposing the institutional bullying and ritual abuse of young ratings. Honourable chap…you’d think. She was an ex-Tax Inspector who had relinquished this role to become a Spiritualist and faith healer. He is a vegetarian, she is a vegan, both are teetotal so they never attended one of our legendary barbecues. Anyway, she immediately launched into GMD about people parking in front of her drive, and specifically about a friend of ours (Mr. Chelsea the third). He had stopped to drop his daughter off and his wife had walked her to the door. Whilst this was happening The Healer had approached him about parking his car across her drive. Thing was, you see, he was parked across mine at the time. He had parked across hers, let his wife and daughter get out, seen them walk to mine, reversed his car into MY drive and pulled out again to face the other way (toward his house) and parked in front of MY drive. The Healer approached him at that point to berate him. He argued the point that in fact he was in front of my drive and house, all to no avail. When she threatened the police he told her to “Fuck off you mad old bat!”. I can’t argue with his reasoning there.

GMD, being very stressed burst into tears. Why was this woman having a go at her?

Enter Jack. In full Chelsea shirt, jeans, complete with fresh Grade 1 cut. Fuming.

I went next door to ask her to complain to me and not GMD, as GMD was already under a lot of pressure. The Healer was tending her garden. Her response was to order me off of her property or “there would be trouble” and “you’ll regret this later”. I tried to argue the point that if she wanted to take that view, then she had trespassed first by walking to my front door. All to no avail. She just rebuffed me even more. I don’t believe in hitting women, no matter how obnoxious they are (unless they hit me first, then in these days of equality they’ll get a dig back)
So I resorted to the witty riposte of …..

“Or what…..you’ll get Big Bad Hornblower onto me? I am SOOOO worried”

Followed by a slightly muffled…

“You are an old bat”

Back into house, everyone is laughing. That’ll teach ‘em. Out of the corner of me eye I saw the tall, grey figure of Hornblower walking down the alley at the side of the house. To do this he would have had to open the (closed) 6 foot wooden gate. Which meant he must have stood on the wall, leant over and opened it himself.

Without my express permission.

Quiet immediately descended. Baby was at the open patio door. “Hello Hornblower” she said sweetly and oblivious to the events that had just occurred. He pushed her aside, she fell, she cried. The other children cried. They were scared. This man was obviously angry, and children are generally scared of angry men. Especially those they don’t really know. Within a few seconds Hornblower was in my front room, nose to nose with me.

Shouting.

I don’t remember what he said, but it was probably along the lines of me not having a go at his wife. I reacted by shouting back. The Grand Master told him to get out. MiddleSis screamed at him to leave. I laughed sneeringly and offered him outside with the renowned duel request of

“You fucking want some?” (repeat several times). I was aware that several people were between us, most were physically holding me back. For Jack had “lost it big time” by now. Jack was defending his family and his home. Jack was in full “flight or fight” mode and the fight element was the winner.

After a minute or so of scuffling and shouting he was ejected by a combination of MiddleSis, Grand Master and Raptor. GMS was comforting Baby and the other kids. All of this was witnessed by my friends, family and 5 people helping out who had never seen me before. In the immediate aftermath I was praised by all and sundry on showing commendable restraint and not flattening the cunt (I rarely ever use that word unless something really pisses me off and he did). I did actually correct them and say the only reason I hadn’t was because I had been STOPPED from doing so by them. When Skank turned up, his immediate suggestion was to go round and issue some summary justice, but common sense prevailed because we had all calmed down by then. MiddleSis was so upset that her children had witnessed this she called the police to complain. They arrived and did the usual note taking. They went to see Hornblower and got his side….apparently we had been parking in front of their drive for months now! Which of course is utter bollocks. The police then left and nothing happened.

As expected.

A week later we received a solicitor’s letter on behalf of Hornblower. It made the accusations regarding the parking. It alluded to my “threats of physical violence”. It threatened injunctions and legal action, plus damages. This was in danger of escalating. I rang a solicitor, who kindly asked me to read her the letter and give my account of what happened. She laughed, told me that the firm of solicitors Hornblower had used would have charged £300 for the letter, which was complete and utter legalistic bollocks, with no standing in law. Hornblower had paid to be ripped off. A second opinion from a mate who is also a solicitor confirmed this. He photocopied it to be framed in his office because it was such crap. He was also a golf mate of the solicitor who had written it and was sure he had written what he had been asked to write, whilst undoubtedly smiling at the contribution to his coffers.

To this day we have not spoken or even acknowledged each others existence. We ignore each other when we pass on the pavement or when we’re outside the front or backs of our houses. Two proud men? Or two silly fucking idiots acting like little boys?

Suits me, the bloke was a fucking nut case before this happened.

Later, Grocerjack